Klimt

I discovered Gustav Klimt's work while assisting to a lecture by renowned Cuban art critic Oscar Morrina, the author of "Acercamiento Elemental a la Forma". Morrina was showing slides of different artists when I saw this full length portrait of a naked pregnant young redhead in profile. I was impacted by the strangeness of the character; the most than pale skin against a red and dark background; the round swollen belly at the center of her slender beautiful figure; the mystery of it all. I didn't know who was the author until some months later while foraging art history books at the National Library in Havana. One of the books on him was an old monograph, superbly printed and well conserved.

This time I fell in love with his "Salome". Salome with the necklace squeezing her throat; asphyxiating her almost at the moment she reach an orgasm; her eyes numbed by pleasure; trying to retain her pose and control but losing it; killing me who is the source of her pleasure; surrounded by gold because of orgasms are made of gold and fire. She with my cadaver head in her arms; sparing me the pain of committing suicide.

I ripped off Salome from the book; took her home and hanged in my bedroom. Every night I looked at her and dreamed of her killing me with orgasms, Dying together in ecstasy.

I was never allowed in the library. I didn't mind it at all; they could have their ripped apart Klimt but I had my Salome.

Years later I'm lying on bed with my redhead girlfriend. Well, she was not exactly redhead but blond, from one of those English speaking countries. We were resting after so many hours of sweating and exhausting love; looking at a Gustav Klimt book. We see his picture, he is wearing a long robe and we imagine that he is wearing nothing under. He looks like a hippie; ready for love. Work, paint, love. Love, paint, work; the days go by. Life goes by, Birth; youth; love; old; death. Life goes by and the cycle starts again. Only one thing is perennial, the flame touch you and then goes away; touching another younger fellow, never stays in one person but is shared by all of them; at least the lucky ones.
The motive behind Klimt's arabesques and decorative forms comes from what he saw in the microscope. Each element's form an equivalent of the form of the bacteria or virus that caused the decease, such as gonorrhea, syphilis and  tuberculosis, very common contagious illnesses of the time and place.  
The greatest achievement for an artist is to create a system of representation; this one based on the latest scientific discoveries of late 19th century and beginning of the 20th. 

(KLimt Movie available in Netflix)

Note: Is that character watching behind the mirrors Adolf Loos? Is the dancer his wife Elsie Altmann?

Adolf Loos in Wikipedia