Emilie Floge: A Portrait
1902 by Gustav Klimt
This is a portrait of Emilie Floge, a dress designer and avant-garde shopkeeper. She is standing with her hand on her hip, in a dress that she designed. She was one of Gustav Klimt’s beloved girlfriends for many years. From the photographs of her, we learn that Klimt did not exaggerate her beauty. Klimt’s paintings were the epitome of high fashion in the first decade of the twentieth century.
The collared hood is extravagantly decorated with twinkling, royal blue flowers framing and separating her head from the dark background, which is the same brunette as her bushy hair. Her elegant, lavender, embroidered, silk dress, which carries the same theme as the ornate hood, reveals a slim figure. Klimt uses gold and mosaic patterns that give it a metallic golden elegance and detail like the delicate sparkle of fine jewelry. The fleshy peach tones of her hands and bodice accentuate the apparent makeup she has on her face. The eyes automatically move from her face, down her left arm, to her elbow, but stops at her hand because the position of it is horizontal and interrupts the vertical movement of the dress. Klimt’s use of chiaroscuro, the arrangement of light and dark elements, especially because of the phosphorescent, glittering fabric makes Emilie appear like she is popping out of the painting. She has a seductive look on her face that is asking you to like her.
Emilie Floge was selected because she is more eye appealing than the Mona Lisa. She is more flamboyant, commands more respect, is more colorful, looks more important, and is just prettier than Mona Lisa. This portrait was chosen because Gustav Klimt’s style is so different than Leonardo da Vinci’s. Klimt drew upon an enormous range of sources from classical to late medieval woodcuts, to the symbolist art of Max Klinger. By synthesizing these diverse sources Klimt’s art achieved both individuality and extreme elegance.