Ondinas, peixes-prateados (Sereias)

Klimt painted these swimming figures around 1899, just as he was breaking with the polite academic art he had trained in and helping lead Vienna's young Secession. Two dark, elongated bodies glide upward through black water, their long shapes almost dissolving into the tails of fish, which is why the picture is sometimes called Silverfish. Their heavily marked eyes and mouths give them a cold, predatory look, closer to sirens luring sailors than to gentle mermaids. Water and the female body would stay among Klimt's subjects for years. Here the mood is still dark and menacing, from the time before the shimmering gold surfaces that would soon make him famous began to take over his work.