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Klimt / Schiele review – the double act who saw the profound in the pornographic

Royal Academy, London
This sumptuous collection of drawings reveals how the master and his protege caused a scandal by bringing sex and death into collision

A model lies on her back on soft pillows, clutching the flesh of her raised left thigh as, with her right hand, she strokes her clitoris. Her eyes close in enjoyment. The artist watches with a pleasure his drawing fully communicates.

When I saw this drawing the caption next to it seemed to be in the wrong place, for it was labelled as a work by the notoriously sensual Austrian artist Egon Schiele. In fact the drawing is clearly signed, in elegant art nouveau capitals, GUSTAV KLIMT. Like pupil, like teacher. The Royal Academy’s mix and mashup of drawings by Klimt, born in 1862, and his protege Schiele, born in 1890, is a surprising, enriching, rewarding comparison of two geniuses who influenced and supported each other and whose imaginations turn out to have much more in common than I thought.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PvfjlZ
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