A Study on the European Symbolist Costume -Focusing on Gustav klimt's Art World-

유럽 상징주의 복식에 관한 연구 -구스타브 클림트(Gustav Klimt)의 회화 세계를 중심으로-

  • 양숙희 (숙명여자대학교 가정대학 의류학과)
  • Published : 1994.05.01

Abstract

The progressive artists in Austria including Gustav Klimt organized the Viennes Se-cessionist in 1897 and they took an active part in the reformation of the reformation of the applied art by accepting the Jugendstil standing for the true art. The vocabularies which characterize this group are decoration literature and the power of symbol. Klimt especially expressed these characteristics and his strong person-ality. For he created his works with the sym-bolic and friendly splendor through his highly decorative talents by accepting the enwly changed artistic situation in those days and by getting out of the naturalistic trends he was regarded as an avant-garde artist as a major figure among the Symbolist artists who revived European culture which was destroyed through the World War I. The characteristics of klimt's works was to express the various human thoughts and minds through the decorativeness and the femininity and to use the decorative elements of old Greek and Egyptian culture and Japanese art as the motives of his works, His art is to be found between the naturalistic characteristics and formalization as well as between the in-dustrial arts and the fine arts. In his many portraits he preferred women by trying to express eroticism hidden behind the human inner world. For this he demonstrated the attractiveness and the characteristics of the models by designing the illusionary and unique clothes. In general his genius was to be seen through the costume which was decorated with metals and jewels and through the characteristics of the modern costume in which the previous solid silhouette was removed and the gentle and elegant me-dium color was used. by accepting the new artistic trends in the turn of the century by fully expressing those characteristics in his creative world and by taking his theme from the eroticism through the decorativeness and the expression of women Gustav Klimt's uniquely decorative ex-pression completely realized the aesthetics of Jugendstil symbol decoration and expression which displayed not only the external appear-ance but also the inner world. Especially he created a new appearance emphasizing the costume of the characters in his works. Also through the costume he expressed his artistic consciousness and psy-chology. He showed the characteristics of the reformed costume through the medium color the simple forms and gentle silhouette. Also he tried to symbolize the passionate inner pow-er by designing the small mosaics such as the geometrical patterns whirlpool patterns and the indecent meanings all over the costume. Klmt's this kinds of attemps shows a Stil Kostume as the external outcome of the inner spiritual activities like art and it establishes a basis for the theory of costume are which deals with the concepts of costume from the artistics points of view. This tradition playing an important role in the contemporary history of costume even has been still inherited up to today.

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