Yes, the lack of emotional connection... many of these women are distant, maybe symbolic rather than all too human. There is also the picture with the huge ape (King Kong?) looking at the stylized women. There is almost a befuddled look in his eyes. But Kong fell for natural beauty (fell literally too from atop the Empire State). The rise of the rich women to be enshrined as some cold transcendental doesn’t comport with our animal being and maybe that is what Klimt is saying.
It’s interesting that the eye dominates — it could have been the other way where the focus is on the music with some attendant pictures. Maybe we are so use to hearing music in the supporting role as a soundtrack and not in its own right.
Yes, art class. I had taken a course on aesthetics back in the 70s and it’s now like ancient history to me. But I do like seeing this kind of stuff, to see what thoughts rear up and present themselves. It is fun!
I love group analysis. I learn so much more when topics are tossed around and massaged.
On the issue of the eye dominating, I’m doing that. I could do it the other way and force you to the music, but that’s not what I’m after. For 34 years I’ve been making these and I think it’s the fact that I’m working with the beat and am choosing visuals based on the sound that keeps you in the visual over the music. I’m telling a story, and you’re paying attention to the story. The music sets the mood for the story. I was actually taught to hear the stories by a nun in high school, though I’m sure she had no idea how I’d eventually use her teaching.
My mother was an art major at U of Chicago before I went there, and she had a total recall of the jokes her professors told. She was my hero. So I tend to think of knowledge as flowing smoothly through the years, always there when you need it. I was a physics major for 3 1/2 years, then took Shroedinger Equations and ran screaming down the street. Mother insisted I stay in school and wanted me to switch to her major, but I didn’t have her talent so went for Art History and took an extra year to graduate. They wouldn’t take my Russian, so had to take a year of French. I have NO ear for human languages, so the teachers always cringed when I recited. Thank goodness Chicago was a research school and they really just wanted you to read. It’s just wonderful to be rolling over in the topic again.