The Portrait of Sonja Knips, 1898, Gustav KlmitI first saw it at the Belvedere, Vienna. I had c
The Portrait of Sonja Knips, 1898, Gustav KlmitI first saw it at the Belvedere, Vienna. I had come to look at The Kiss, Judith and the Head of Holofernes, various of his landscapes, and others of his most popular works that I had already learned detail by detail from the pictures in my books. I was not expecting this. I stood frozen in front of her for three minutes straight before reluctantly turning again to The Kiss. I don’t understand how it can be so completely underrated. Everything in it is hauntingly beautiful. The unreadable expression of her face as she looks into viewer’s eyes directly, the enormous shadows that cover almost the half of the painting, the flowers behind her head. Is she about to sit down or to stand up? Is she impatiently waiting for someone, sitting on the verge of her armchair? What is that red thing in her hand: a flower, a letter, a piece of chiffon? Why does the hand that holds it look so blurred? -- source link
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