Castles · Tour

The Bride Was Left Unfinished in the Studio When the Ambulance Came

A private tour of the Belvedere with an art historian, on Klimt and nothing else. Vienna advertises the most famous kiss in the world on every second poster. This tour goes at the painting properly and leaves you to decide whose account holds up: the art historians', the marketing department's, or your own. The route follows Klimt's changes across his working life, from the early Portrait of the Unknown Lady through to The Bride, which was never finished and was still in the studio when he was taken to hospital by ambulance. Between them, the portraits that earned him his reputation as the painter of beautiful women, and the reason that description has been argued over ever since: whether he read what his sitters wanted more accurately than Sigmund Freud, working a few streets away, read his patients. Klimt is shown among the people he worked with and against, which is what makes the case for why this one painter matters so much to this city. If you want The Kiss and then something to take away from the rest of the room, this is the version of a Belvedere visit that does that.