My new year always begins with my birthday, which arrives so close to New Year’s Eve as to add extra significance to both.
This year my birthday treat was a visit to Vienna’s Belvedere Gallery where I finally came face to face with the real Gustav Klimt – rather than the one whose work appears tamely on almost everything in Vienna: keyrings, fridge magnets, mouse mats and t-shirts.
Here in the gallery were the canvases in full technicolour glory, entirely different from all those copies: huge, glittering and so bold. A perfect motif for how I would like to live the next twelve months of my life.
Among them, Klimt’s slightly less well-known Portrait of Fritza Riedler (above) was painted in 1906. I imagine it bursting into the dourness of post-Victorian Britain, as shocking and wonderful as a rainbow illuminating grey skies after days of rain.
At first glance it is a classic portrait, masterfully executed from the chiffon-like ruffles of the dress to the delicately posed hands. But then as you look properly the painting becomes a treasure trove of the unexpected: blocks of textured colour in place of the usual bland background; the almost-halo framing the model’s face, a glorious mosaic inspired by other lands; the surreal pattern on the chair where Fritza sits, reminiscent of eyes or snakeskin; the small squares of pattern that punctuate the colour blocks as if to prevent our gaze settling, demanding we pay attention.
Thinking about some of the main themes of my Best Year book these moments I spent with the painting remind me that life too is a treasure when we pause long enough to notice what is all around us, and take the time to experience it – explore – through as many of our senses as possible. It expands when we make opportunities to do things we’ve not done before – whether that means visiting a new gallery or simply walking home by a different route. (Or – as I did on New Year’s Day – bringing a small biscuit back to bed to have with my morning tea and tasting its crumbly sweetness in a way I don’t when meals become a mostly unconscious habit.)
Klimt’s painting also speaks, in a perhaps more challenging way, of what may arise when we operate from what’s within us rather than the comfortable and safe norms of what we see all out-with us. I like to think what I see in Fritza’s face is openness and curiosity: two qualities which are necessary for Growth.
Finally the sheer ambition of this work, sitting brashly alongside all those traditionally beautiful and almost photographic landscapes from the same era, are a reminder of the power of being bold with our lives, of mixing it up, taking risks and becoming the creators of our own world. As we begin a new year that’s my commitment to myself.
*** Thinking about your intentions for the new year, is there a work of art – painting, sculpture, song, poem, building or something else – that might serve as a motif and reminder to you?
Have the best year of your life 