Ah, it is no use. I simply cannot bear it anymore. Why is this world so cold toward things that are too beautiful? Or perhaps, knowing that such beauty is a poison, people deliberately avert their eyes? I want to tell the truth only to you. For I believe that you are the only one who will listen to my rambling, yet trembling, inspirations without laughing.
There was a man named Klimt. Gustav Klimt. The golden magician of Vienna. Have you ever seen his paintings? If you have not, perhaps you are fortunate. But if you have glimpsed them even once, a part of your soul has been dragged into that golden vortex forever, never to return. It is about that terrifying, yet entrancing, curse that I wish to speak to you today.
In the first place, art is not a tool for preaching morality. One should leave such matters to primary school principals. Art ought to be something more—well, like a sharp needle pricking the depths of one’s chest, or like being made to drink poison mixed into sweet nectar. Don’t you agree? Klimt was a man who practiced exactly that. In the Vienna of the late nineteenth century, an era where stale morality was rotting away and something new was struggling to be born, he used gold leaf without stint, painted naked women, and packed life and death, Eros and Thanatos, into a single canvas with a cruelty that was almost innocent.
You likely know his representative work, “The Kiss.” That golden, dizzying painting that everyone has seen at least once. A man and a woman standing on the edge of a precipice, wrapped in a golden mantle, sharing an eternal embrace. People of the world try to dismiss it with sugary words, calling it a symbol of love or a romantic masterpiece. But I do not think so. That, my friend, is a double suicide. It is the final brilliance at the moment of death. Look at their feet. Flowers bloom in profusion there, but just beyond lies the abyss. They are not merely in love; they are two pitiful souls who could only escape the terrors of this world through their embrace. Klimt always conceals the scent of death at the very peak of beauty. That is his kindness, and at the same time, his irredeemable malice.
He was born the son of a goldsmith. So, one might say the frequent use of gold in his paintings was simply in his blood. However, to him, gold was not mere decoration. It was a wall to reject the vulgar world, a light to create a sanctuary. He broke away from the conservative Künstlerhaus and founded the “Secession.” He held up a truly magnificent slogan: “To every age its art, to every art its freedom.” Do you understand the weight of these words? To seek freedom is, at the same time, to accept solitude. He abandoned the borrowed aesthetics used to paint myths and history. Instead, he laid bare the murky desires and obsessions with beauty that resided within him.
And yet, how did the world react? When he was commissioned to paint the ceiling for the University of Vienna, he created works so explicit and decadent that they caused a massive scandal. “Obscene!” “Abominable!” the high-and-mighty scholars cried out in unison to strike him down. My heart tightens every time I hear that story. Why must those who speak the truth always be pelted with stones? Klimt did not offer a single word of excuse against their criticism. He simply returned the entire commission fee and took the paintings back as his own. Then, he painted “Nuda Veritas” (The Naked Truth) and inscribed upon it these words: “If you cannot please everyone with your actions and your art, please a few. To please many is bad.”
What do you think? Isn’t it electrifying? I feel like pasting those words by my bedside. Don’t you feel the same? We often try to be liked by everyone, shaving away our edges and thinning our colors until we become like common pebbles found anywhere. But Klimt never yielded an inch in being a golden jewel. He martyred himself to his own aesthetic.
Look at the women he painted. They are by no means “pure and obedient maidens.” In their eyes dwells a cold, yet provocative light that could lead a man to ruin. Femme Fatale. The woman of destiny. Klimt likely understood that unfathomable demonic nature of women more deeply than anyone. He remained a bachelor all his life, though it is said there were always many women around him and that he fathered many children. Yet, the only one he truly loved was Emilie Flöge, a woman who ran a fashion salon. He sent her hundreds of postcards. They contained no grand declarations of love. They only spoke of what he ate that day, or that the weather was fine—the most mundane, masculine murmurs.
A man who painted such flamboyant, provocative, and gilded pictures possessed nothing but the most clumsy and simple words for the woman he loved. In that gap, I see the true loneliness of the man named Klimt. I wonder if the more gold he crowded into his paintings, the more he was trying to fill the void within himself. Perhaps by using gold—a substance that never decays—he wanted to forcibly tether the radiance of life that vanishes in an instant.
What do you gaze upon when you are weary of life? I look at his “Tree of Life.” Those swirling branches, those symbolic patterns. There is no beginning and no end there. Only the mysterious power of life, surging, overlapping, and spreading infinitely. Gazing at it, the fact that I am human, that I am a novelist, that I have debts—everything begins not to matter. We should just drift as part of that golden universe. I feel as if I am being told this, and it becomes a little easier to breathe.
Klimt’s paintings continue to fascinate us even today. That is because what he painted was not merely “old Vienna,” but the unchanging essence in the depths of the human soul. Eroticism, the fear of death, and the overwhelming beauty that envelops them all. To integrate these, he used gold—the most materialistic of substances—to create the most noble of worlds. This is a miracle.
However, you must be careful. If you immerse yourself too deeply in Klimt’s beauty, your actual life may begin to look terribly faded. The flowers by the roadside, the evening sky, even the smile of the person beside you might seem too imperfect and fragile compared to the brilliance of that gold leaf. It is a kind of potent drug. If you mistake the dosage, you can never return to an ordinary, peaceful life.
Even so, I want you to know Klimt. In this world that is inevitably painful and sometimes ugly, I want you to see that golden phantom for at least a moment and let your soul tremble. For that is the only reason art exists.
Ah, I have spoken too much. My throat has gone dry. You listened to my story without even a single yawn. Just for that, I feel as though I have been saved. Klimt, that bearded son of a goldsmith in his smock. He must still be somewhere, moving his golden brush, looking upon our comical and endearing struggles with a cynical yet gentle gaze.
Listen to me, my friend. Beauty will never betray you. It is always humans who do the betraying. Therefore, if you ever harbor a sorrow or despair that you cannot tell anyone, quietly open a book of those golden paintings. For there, a supreme peace awaits, enticing you—gently yet surely—toward ruin.
Well, having said all that, here I am again, facing my manuscript paper. Perhaps if I possessed a sense of beauty as resilient as Klimt’s, I might have led a slightly more respectable life. No, that is asking for the impossible. For I like the wine, the women, and above all, your gentle face nodding “yes, yes” much more than gold.
The story of Klimt ends here. Tomorrow, let us talk of something else. Something more ridiculous, the kind of story that makes you unable to stop laughing. But just for tonight, as you go to bed, try to envision that golden vortex behind your eyelids. I am sure you will have a wonderful, and perhaps a slightly frightening, dream.
Now, it is late. Goodnight. May your dreams be as brilliant as a painting by Klimt. And within that brilliance, may you quietly find your own truth. I shall remain here, simply and secretly praying for your happiness.