Processing
Oil-on-canvas pictography "Retouch" category. Oil pictography on canvas with gold leaf border. Retouching with Maimeri, Winsor and Newton colors Working with magnifying glass Hot chalk reliefs, gilding in 18 kt. pure gold leaf. Linen canvas mounted on frame with gold border; concealed hook for wall mounting. Frame thickness mm 27/30.
History
The Stoclet Palace Frieze is a mosaic made by Gustav Klimt between 1905 and 1909 for the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. Its preparatory cartoons are now on display at the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. The frieze's central motif, the Tree of Life, spreads its elegant, spiraling branches over the entire surface of the two longest walls. Numerous ornamental elements stand out among the branches of the tree, including a variety of flowers characteristic for their Egyptian eye shape. The Tree of Life, which represents the salvation that came to the pagans after the apocalypse, is a symbol of the Golden Age and recalls a very recurring theme in Klimt's works: the cycle of life, the seasons, and the unbroken cycle that leads from death to rebirth. The tree is also interpreted as the tree of knowledge that leads into the Garden of Eden; Josef Hoffmann describes it as "the garden of art and love that, unlike the one the Stoclet Palace overlooks, would never wither." The tree is thus the backbone of the entire representation, within which are embedded the other figures belonging to the frieze, the Waiting and the Embrace.
Gustav Klimt, The Tree of Life