Male Nude

In the early 1880s Vienna was still building its Ringstrasse, the great boulevard of theatres, museums and palaces, and its architects wanted young painters who could cover walls and ceilings quickly and cheaply. Klimt was training for exactly that, in the decorative painting class of the city's school of arts and crafts, and the work demanded a thorough grounding in the nude. This canvas, from around 1883, is one of those exercises and among his earliest known paintings. A bearded model rests one knee on a stack of plain wooden crates in a bare studio, an arm raised over his head. Nothing is flattered or covered up. Only the pose is borrowed, from the fighting figures carved on ancient battle sarcophagi. Studies like this were never meant for sale, and a figure worked out this way could later reappear, fully clothed, in a history painting.