One of the greatest modern artists from Austria, Gustav Klimt was the founder and leading figure in the Vienna Secession movement - the group of artists and craftsmen who rejected the conservative academic art and values of the previous generation. Klimt is best known for his decorative art, or at least his decorative style of painting, which - in the manner of Byzantine Art - used gold and semi-precious gems for ornamentation, and is characterized by a flat linear style, often decorated with biomorphic forms, as exemplified by his masterpiece The Kiss (1908). In its use of distortion, and non-naturalist colours, Klimt's art also has a strong element of Expressionism. His style is characterized by frontality, interest in surface pattern, and the use of gold and other metal. In 1905, Klimt was commissioned to decorate the interior of the Palais Stoclet, the home of a wealthy Belgian industrialist in Brussels. Klimt's design for the Stoclet frieze included three parts, two almost identical large images with a tree and human figures opposite each other on the long walls and a smaller, more abstract image on the far wall. The Tree of Life, which dominates both large images, is an old idea that dates back to prehistory. It is a symbolic image that connects life and death and heaven and earth. The roots of the tree begin underground, in the realm of the underworld. The trunk then breaks through to the earth and rises to the sky. The upper tree branches curl, twist and intertwine as they connect to the heavens. So, the Tree of Life represents the continuity of life as well as its complexities. It unites all elements of life. Klimt further emphasizes this connectedness by his use of a flattened style and design elements that envelope the entire surface.
In this lesson, the students were introduced to pattern as an element of art and explored an image that uses a tree as a metaphor for life and unity. They were asked to find the patterns that the artist used consistently in the painting. Then they started off their project by painting a piece of cardboard in a neutral earth tone and marked the ground part with collaging gold leaves and sequins. Next they manipulated clay to sculpt the trunk of the tree and the spiral branches around it and decorated it with flowers and bronze leaves. To give it a more decorative look they used gold acrylic paint to paint the trunk and their tree of life was then complete.