帕拉斯·雅典娜

In 1898 a group of young Vienna artists had just broken from the official art establishment and named themselves the Secession. For their second exhibition Gustav Klimt handed them an emblem: Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, in a golden helmet and scaled breastplate, looking straight out at the viewer. She stood for their claim to make art on their own terms. Many call this the first picture of Klimt's golden phase, the armour laid on flat and glinting like mosaic tiles rather than modelled metal. On her helmet the Gorgon's face sticks out its tongue. In her raised hand stands a tiny naked woman holding up a mirror, Klimt's figure of naked Truth, whom he would paint on her own the following year.