#5: "Livin My Life Like It's Golden"
I received some good news, and my life has changed quite a bit. I’m going to NYU for my master’s this coming fall. It still doesn’t seem real. It almost feels like hitting the jackpot—literally. I’ve been radiating all weekend. I was expecting my decision in March, but it surprised me to hear so soon, especially since I was in denial, doubting whether I should have even applied in the first place. Sometimes we don’t trust ourselves, so we can craft a more fitting story—one that’s seen as more realistic or suitable. But sometimes, you just can’t help but shine through dull moments.
Gold has long been a contested material in the art world. Its gleam and relative rarity make it highly desirable. However, in some ways, it has also been weaponized as gaudy—"kitsch,” even. In one sense, gold is perceived as a skin, serving, in an unusual sense, as an indicator of luxury—pure opulence. Paradoxically, this can turn into excessiveness. Donald Trump has painted every corner of the White House in gold, thus cheapening it. Yet, when the Met commissioned Hew Locke to create “Gilt,” a series of golden trophies, they served as reflections on the exercise and representation of power in institutional spaces like the museum. Unknowingly, gold allows us to comment on our morals.
Gustav Klimt’s “Judith I” (1901) is the first example of gold used in painting more than 200 years after its origin and popularity. Byzantine gold-ground paintings profoundly influenced early Renaissance artists, who extensively used gilding in their altarpieces to emphasize the divinity of the subjects and to incorporate additional classical humanistic influences. Klimt notably liked to paint women— “the femme fatale”—, close enough that it was almost deemed misogynistic for a retelling of a biblical story. As historian Lisa Fischer succinctly puts it, “the crisis of the ego was the crisis of the male figure.”
But in my opinion, Judith I is different. It embraces female eroticism and sensuality in a way deemed impossible. According to the bible, Judith beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes after seducing him, to save her Jewish people from their downfall. Most depictions of Judith portray her after the beheading or in the middle of the act, either in a state of rage or pure shock. But Klimt’s Judith looks relieved. With a slightly reclined head and open mouth, Judith entices the viewer as she gazes with her half-closed eyes; she is ready to exhale.
Shockingly, her breasts are revealed and covered by a thin veil-like fabric, employing a sfumato painting technique to create a translucent haze. This, along with the golden patterns that adorn her skin, emphasizes a sense of regality. In a way, Judith herself appears decapitated, accentuated by her heavy gold choker studded with gemstones (a first for a Judith depiction), which protrudes further from the painting due to the thickness of the paint and the richness of the material adorning her body. Judith looks at ease. She has saved her people and holds the bleeding head of Holofernes. Klimt even sidelines him, as though he holds no importance to the composition. And he may be right. Our only focus is on the gold-colored landscape elements. The gold of the background acts as a nimbus, elevating Judith to the status of a saint. She marks the beginning of an era, and with that, she may exhale and reveal herself in immense earned glory.
Of course, Viennese society could not bring itself to admire the orgasmic painting. They could not accept the idea that a pious Jewish widow might take pleasure in her murderous actions, risking her virtue to save the city—but that remains the point. Judith I is one of my favourite paintings because it is the first to depict the femme fatale fighting for independence; it’s a form of suffrage that broke barriers. In plain English, it rightens women’s wrongs. Klimt employs both ornamentation and a linear flattening of form to subvert the traditional archetype of the femme fatale. And in doing so, Judith I is not merely a crisis of ego but a metaphor for female identity, the tension between historicism and modernism, and early feminist ideology in contemporary Austrian society.
In all fairness, Judith got the last laugh. Somehow, Klimt adorns this feeling—that sweet, sickly pleasure—of triumph when all the odds may be against you. Whether gaudy or sacred, Klimt’s use of gold has infused Judith with a sense of purity—an entry to the eternal realm where she delights in her success. Strangely, I don’t mind how she looks. I care about how she feels, and each time I dwell on her expression, I can’t help but think that Judith is closer to God, divinely protected by Him, and that the gold embellishing her body shines. After waiting many months to exhale, I’m finally ready to live my life like it’s golden.
Comments
Post a Comment