
“Death and Life” is a large painting created by Gustav Klimt in 1910.  Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.  This movement was nothing more than just a few artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artist.  Gustav Klimt did paintings, murals, and sketches that included allegories, portraits, and landscapes.  Also, one of Gustav Klimt’s main focuses was the female body.  Klimt was mostly influenced by the arts and methods of the Japanese.  In his painting “Death and Life” there is a wide range of colors and patterns used to make the viewer focus on the two individual subjects as a whole.  Gustav Klimt’s painting displays that even as death is in the presents of life right in its face, the cycle of life including death will never be terminated.

In the image of “Death and Life” below, there are two individual subjects which are a figure that appears to a Grim Reaper or “Death” and a figure that shows many people or “Life”.  The figure of Death is nothing but a skull with a mischievous smile upon his face.  This evil smile or grin shows Death’s excitement know that he could a life.  His body is created with an assemblage of different shapes like circles, squares, and crosses.  Death is also holding something that looks almost like a giant key.  This key could be the key that unlocks life which would make an individual available for Death’s taking.  The figure of Life that is on the right of the picture shows many people and a collage of shapes and patterns, which brings together the shape of the subject. 

In this painting of “Death and Life” there is a very close meaning more than just Death being in the face of Life ready to finish it all.  By taking a deeper look into the image the viewer can see that the figure that appears to be Life is just not a single individual, but a cluster of people from every age and generation that ranges from a newborn baby all the way up to an old grandmother.  With every age possible being displayed in the picture it shows the cycle of life.  Also, in the figure of Life there are many more women than men.  This shows that no matter how many times Death seizes another victim the cycle of life will fail to be concluded.  This is because another person can be birthed at any time by a woman.  This cycle of life is continuous because with time the women will get older and produce children, so Death can take as many lives as he pleases but this would not affect the life cycle.

The development of this image is ultimately established by the colors, shapes, and patterns within the subjects of the image.  The background of the image is an ashy black which allows both Death and Life to stand out from the background.  Even though Death’s figure is made of all dark colors which are: black, and different shades of blue, purple, and green the figure can still be distinguished from the background.  The colors used for Death are analogous colors which makes the cloak that he is wearing have little to no contrast, and could almost blend to the dark background and provides more attention to the figure of Life.  However, the figure of Life on the other hand is made up of almost every color including dark colors, but there are many more bright colors than dark colors.  The image of Life includes these dark colors within in it to show the viewer of the image that even though Life is mostly bright colors and everything is bright and happy, things may get dark in life but they will not last long.  The brightness of the colors, shapes, and patterns around Life allows the viewer of the image to focus on more of the details of Life due to the darkness of the background. While viewing Life, there are many faces hidden within the patterns. 

Klimt choses his colors wisely. By having an ashy black background Life can be seen much easier than Death.  This shows that Death is not as nearly important as Life.  He is showing that just because Death arrives, Life does not necessarily stop.  However, as Death is almost just as dark as the background, the cross patterns on his cloaks easily grabs the viewer’s attention.  Klimt does this to get Death more attention and uses the large number of crosses on his cloaks to signify death.  However, the crosses within Death’s cloak could also be involving the religion of Christianity and symbolize death the way that Jesus died, upon a cross.  For Life, the pattern at the top of the figure could be shown as a bed of flowers which makes Life more peaceful and relaxed.  Also, the hidden faces show that life is always present even if it is hard to find.

Therefore, in “Death and Life” the colors, shapes, and patterns create the development of the figures in the image to come together and generate one big image.  The features of the image exhibit how Death is not as nearly important when Life is involved.  Death cannot compare to Life due to the differences of color and Life is much larger than Death.  All together this image creates the theme that no matter how bad death may seem, the cycle of life will always continue going.  Death can always be present but will always be overshadowed by Life.