Death and Life – The famous painting by Gustav Klimt in Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

The epitome of truth is death. Our all anxieties, insecurities in life, desires, failures all come to a halt with death.

We may philosophize or fantasize death, but there is no denying that no one can ever escape the cold hands of the grim reaper.

Poets, painters, musicians or scientists, all express death in many unique ways. One such representation is Gustav Klimt’s Death and Life – a painting which was honored with a first prize at the 1911 International Art Exhibition in Rome.

Klimt believed that this was his most important figurative work.

We may philosophize or fantasize death, but there is no denying that no one can ever escape the cold hands of the grim reaper. #Travel #wanderer #wanderlust #painting Click To Tweet

Death and Life in the Leopold Museum

In 2013, while I was going through a terrible trauma personally, I met Death and Life, in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, Austria.

I have always perceived death as the boundless, formless, infinite, eternal, undivided, unmoved, and unchanging Reality.

Klimt made my perception alive on his canvas, albeit his death has a form and symbol.

Everything that has a beginning, has an ending. Death is a part of life and lurks maliciously, ready to strike at any time. In this artwork, the extreme color contrasts convey a disturbing allegory of the ephemeral and cyclic nature of existence.

~ Google Arts & Culture

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Death And Life by Gustav Klimt

Before I go on to describe this fascinating painting, I must thank Leopold Museum, which allowed me to photograph the famous painting (without flash of course!).

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I have always perceived death as the boundless, formless, infinite, eternal, undivided, unmoved and unchanging Reality. Klimt made my perception alive on his canvas, albeit his death has a form and symbol. Click To Tweet

Description of Klimt’s Death and Life

Death is on the left and is looking at life with a malicious grin.

Painted in gloomy violet-blue shades and wrapped in a long cloak of crosses and circles, death appears lonely and skeletal.

~ Google Arts & Culture

To the right, we see life. In life, every age group is represented, starting from the baby to the grandmother; life is perhaps a depiction of never-ending circle.

We see a newborn child lying in the arms of his mother and a muscular man is holding one of the women.

By over-representation of women, Klimt perhaps wanted to emphasize the source of all life.

On the right, we find life instead; a harmonious tangle of naked bodies, who are separated and brought together by geometric motifs. These motifs symbolize the magma of vital energy, where existence is depicted at every stage.

~ Google Arts & Culture

If one looks keenly the diverse faces of life, it is obvious that they are not threatened by death instead they seem indifferent.

Death is on the left and is looking at life with a malicious grin. To the right, we see life. In life, every age group is represented, starting from the baby to the grandmother; life is perhaps a depiction of never ending circle. Click To Tweet

My Realization on Klimt’s Death and Life

After seeing this painting, I felt, nothing could be more creative than death, since it is the whole secret of life. I remember a quote by Franz Kafka

The meaning of life is that it stops.

Klimt too had depicted this eternal truth through his canvas. Although life is represented on the flower bed, still the truth is death is waiting for everyone.

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The meaning of life is that it stops. Click To Tweet The only dream of eternity we have left, the only way we can escape death , is love! Click To Tweet

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Chirasree Banerjee

Hello. My name is Chirasree. I have been traveling for almost 11 years to places all over the world. I enter into a separate reality during my travels and enjoy the allure of escape from the mundane. I seek beauty through nature and human-made creations. Because beauty is powerful. I seek knowledge. I observe, absorb, and write about the places I visit and the profound realizations and inspirations that each place has to offer.