Portrait of Fritza Riedler 1906

Gustav Klimt made this portrait of Fritza Riedler in Vienna with oil on canvas. Klimt made this portrait in a curious palette of copper and silver. Can you imagine the studio when Klimt was painting it? He probably started with the face and the dress – a wash of grey paint, like a ghostly gown. He must have layered so many glazes to create those soft, delicate folds. The background is something else, though. Check out the square blocks of colour, the geometric shapes floating around her head. It's like Klimt was thinking about how a painting isn't just a window but an arrangement of shapes, a pattern. The way he mixed the real and the abstract reminds me of Matisse, but with a Viennese twist. A conversation, maybe. That's what painting is, you know – a never-ending chat among artists, across time, and space.