VIEWS OF VIENNA

Yesterday, I mentioned that Vienna is Janus-like: it is the beauty and the beast. Everywhere you’ll see kitsch versions of fine paintings by Gustave Klimt on chocolate boxes. The real beauty in his painting THE KISS can only be seen in the original painting at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. It was painted in oil and gold leaf but the richness of the colours cannot be seen in copies. If you can, do visit the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna. You’ll be stunned by the size and exquisite beauty in the painting. But there is also much pain in it.
I wrote this poem after seeing the original.

THE KISS

Wrapped in a timeless dimension

the lovers gleam from a golden halo

silently isolated in space

reality has no part to play

    in their richly ornamented lives

 

 

A bell of gold

defines them

in ornate contrasts

the phallic man

strong rectangles

of black and gold

turns towards her

     bull-like

in his desire

to kiss a universe

    of love

across her canvas

the passive woman

   caresses curves

     of floral colour

     dissolving

 into

   his paradoxical

abstraction

 

she kneels

  before him

on

 symbolic

       meadow flowers

 accepting

his

transformation

They rise out of gold to unite

       in the eternity of one kiss           

petrified 

in the non-consummation

   of their love

In contrast, after seeing many of Egon Shiele's self portraits in Vienna, I was struck by his chameleon quality. Who was this man? In each portrait he offered the viewer a different view of himself. He really made me think about what identity really is.  How strange it was to find myself writing a novel and screenplay last year which searches for exactly the same thing!

Egon Shiele's Self Portrait

‘Behind your thoughts and feeling, my brother stands a mighty master, an unknown sage. His name is Self.’    Nietzsche.

The image in the mirror is not you,

but all the people inside you. Your portraits

are a quest to find out how many you are:

Christ, Clown, Hero, Victim?

 Narcissus in Vienna without a flower,

you exhibit yourself to the future in

 distorted mirrors: electrified hair and

grotesque features drag Dorian into your life.

Not for you the cover of Klimt’s ornateness,

but exposure in all its flawed forms.

You monochrome your background

with energetic brush strokes, then place

your nude body on top; angled for attention;

coloured with movement:

creating a world in your own image.