Death and Life

Gustav Kilmt's painting Death and Life is saturated with imagery. The composition is broken in to two pillars of activity on the left and on the right. Unlike many of Klimt's other works, the background is a relatively flat, eery green color with some texture added through the use of brush strokes. On the left is a figure with a skull for a head and a bony hands that hold an object that looks like a flute or a recorder. The left hand figure represents death. His body is shrouded in pattern containing the catholic cross that is highlighted by the pattern but interior shows through to the background. The colors on the shroud are dark and ominous.

on the right hand side of the painting is a leaning mass of people seemingly stacked on top of each other with more pattern being the only thing that holds the pillar. The mass of people includes a few beautiful young women posing for the viewer, a pretty young mother and her rosy cheeked baby, an old woman who prays with her head cast down and eyes averted from the on-looker, a small child who peeks out from the consuming blanket wrapped around the people, and finally a tan man and a pale woman who hold each other with heads down resting on the other.

As for the story that goes on here, I see a population who is held together by a common source. Each person handles the onset of death differently: Some embrace life, some are naive to the concept, some avert their eyes in fear or grief, and some prepare for death by appealing to salvation. Death wears a suit patterned with cemetery plot marker. He brings death in the cruelest of forms by presenting a cold, dark, damp eternity in the ground. He carries a club or an instrument, perhaps to lure the un-thinking closer to the edge. Death smiles and looks Right at the mass of people, none of which acknowledge him at all.

The success of absurdity in the design, breathes fresh life into the obviousness of imagery in Klimt's painting. While it is easy to see that people exist in the composition, There is not sense of proportion or structure, which leaves the bodies anamorphic and free floating. The pattern that Klimt wraps the bodies in switches between figure and ground which is intriguing. the randomness of pattern makes the images of the bodies stand out in contrast against obscurity. With the exception of Death's cloak it is unclear whether the people are clothed of if a blanket surrounds them. Perhaps it is just klimt's way of separating one person from the next. The dynamic colors make one want to keep looking and searching for still more imagery. The painting has the effect of an optical illusion, one waits for the puzzle to be solved and yet there is no solution, only a story wrapped in vibrancy and motion.