I really love how Gustav Klimt saw the world. Differently, and magical. I think I ’see’ things like he did when I dream, but only when I dream, and I have that same feeling, that of dreaming, when I look at his paintings.

Here is another wonderful Gustav Klimt painting. The subject is Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and the hostess of a prominent Vienna salon. The painting is considered one of Klimt’s masterpieces. This painting was also involved in a restitution battle between a niece of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer who argued that it was seized along with four other Klimt paintings by the Nazis during World War II. In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann, now 90, who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members. The painting has also gained notoriety as having fetched the largest sum ever paid for a painting, when it was purchased for $135 million dollars by Ronald S. Lauder for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan. It’s a truly wonderful painting.

Click the thumbnail for the full size image.