Excellant back tattoo work inspired by Gustav Klimt "Hygeia" painting. Which starts while blurry from the lower back becomes cleaner and detailed as goes up to head.
Hygeia painting by Gustav Klimt
Trained as an architectural painter, Gustav Klimt paintings
contributed to the interior decorations of numerous public buildings in
Vienna. Among the more famous cases are the faculty paintings he
completed for the University of Vienna in the years 1900-07. The three
paintings, Medicine, Philosophy and Jurisprudence, covered three central
faculties at the school. The paintings were unfortunately all destroyed
by retreating SS forces in May 1945.
The
second of the three works was unveiled at the tenth Secession
Exhibition in 1901. This work covered Medicine. In the painting we find a
river of life running in the upper part, with a floating girl and her
newborn symbolizing life and a skeleton within the river of life
symbolizing its ties to death. In the lower part of the painting, we
find Hygeia, the Greek goodness of health, cleanliness and sanitation
and daughter of the god of medicine. Standing there in her red robes,
the Aesculapius snake is wrapped around her arm while she is holding the
cup of Lethe in her hand (the drinking of which results in the loss of
memory). A photo of Hygeia taken before the destruction of the painting
ensures that we have a clear view of how this masterful depiction
looked.
In the painting, we see Hygeia
somewhat turning her back to mankind. She seems aloof and somewhat
abstracted. Combined with the river of life present, it provides a sort
of an ambiguous unity of life and death in the painting. This ambiguous
unity was interpreted as a lacking role for medicine in curing the sick
and preventing death. The piece was thus widely criticized for this when
it was first revealed. The faculty paintings were also accused of being
perverted and pornographic, though that is hardly unusual for works of
Klimt at this time.
Still,
the look and pose of Hygeia is one of power and deferred interest. She
looks majestic in her red robe with golden symbols, as she considers her
interest in what lays before her. It is a true Klimt master piece and
one that highly deserves reproduction, so that we can once again enjoy
its forceful beauty.
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