A crazy month. Traveling to Madeira, Paris and twice to Vienna. First trip to Vienna to chose our new dog Dexter from a nest of eight in Vienna and second trip last weekend to pick him up. Traveling with us our son Lucas, who wanted to witness this pick up and see Vienna for the first time. Because it was the museum that impressed me the most during our visit 2 years ago, we took him to the Leopold to show him TOD UND LEBEN by Gustav Klimt.
This is the painting that has it all. All aspects of life caught within one framed painting. Measuring aprox. 2,5 x 2,5 meters it is large and impressive and one of the icons in modern art, but the Leopold has much much more. 4 floors with art filled by Klimt, Moser, Kokoschka and last but not least Egon Schiele. I have seen many Schiele paintings and drawings in my life. From an impressive Schiele contribution to the KLIMT/ SCHIELE / KLEE exhibition in the Gemeentemuseum to the special Schiele exhibtion in the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but was really impressed by the amount and quality of the Schiele’s on show in the Leopold Museum two years ago. This time it was totally different….from the four floors, 2 were closed and worse……. all the Schieles on Paper were in Facsimile. It is like going to a theater show, paying full entrance fee and see only half of it on television.
These were not the real works of art and a museum like the Leopold Museum should inform its visitors on forehand that these were reproductions of the real works of art. To make it even worse they charged the full entrance fee for the visit…..a true disappointment, but with a fond memory to the TOD UND LEBEN/1915 which is still there and one of the most impressive and fascinating paintings in the world.
