Gustav Klimt
The Virgins
Measures: 190 × 200 cm
Technique: Oil on canvas
Depository: National Gallery Prague
The Virgins contains multiple flowers, which add to the theme: evolution into womanhood. While sketching for the painting, Klimt wanted his models to make larger than life physical poses. There are five women in the painting (or one woman with four sides to her persona) and all of them seem to be intertwined. The lines are clear and the human themes of love, sexuality and regeneration are obvious in the circular cyclical shape of the work. In painting The Virgins the different life stages are represented by the same woman. Dislocated body parts in outrageous poses move as if under water. The empty shell of a woman’s dress at the bottom gives birth to a child (the next generation) via a cascading waterfall of colour.
