Google Doodles for Gustav Klimt's 150th birthday

Clicking Google.com today will take you to Austrian symbolist painter and a prominent member of the Vienna Secession movement - Gustav Klimt’s famous painting, called The Kiss, which he painted between 1907 and 1908. 

Gustav Klimt was born on this day in 1862 in Baumgarten, near Vienna in Austria-Hungary. Klimt attended the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts despite poverty, and studied architectural painting there, until 1883. It was in 1888, that he earned himself the Golden order of Merit from Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria for his contributions to murals that were pained in Burgtheater in Vienna. Klimt also went on to become the honorary member of the University of Munich and the University of Vienna. In 1911, Klimt’s painting, called Death and Life earned him first prize at the world exhibitions in Rome. Klimt’s The Kiss, like several of his other works, like Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I belonged to what was his ‘Golden Phase’, in  which he earned himself both -  success and positive reactions. 

Google doodles for Gustav Klimt on his 150th birthday

Klimt breathed his last on February 6, 1918, after he suffered a stroke and pneumonia, because of the influenza epidemic of that year. At death, several of Klimt’s paintings remained unfinished. However, his paintings have earned some of the highest prices ever recorded for individual works of art. For example - his work, Landhaus am Attersee was sold for $29,128,000 in November 2003. In 2006, yet another ok Klimt’s works - Adele Bloch-Bauer I was purchased for the Neue Galerie New York by Ronald Lauder for a reported US $135 million, making it the highest reported price ever paid for a painting. 

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In today’s doodle, Google celebrates Klimt’s life and works, with one of his notable works, called The Kiss, which Klimt painted when he was 45. The doodle has the world ‘Google’ etched on the painting with the painting itself, that of a couple in an embrace with their bodies entwined - taking prominence. This work of Klimt is an oil and gold leaf on canvas, essentially - with conventional oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf. The painting now adorns the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere palace, Vienna, and is considered to be most notable of Klimt’s works.