MIDDLEBURY — For the last Great Art Wednesday film of the season, Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater will screen the new documentary film, “Klimt & Schiele: Eros and Psyche.” This film contrasts the heady sensuality of Klimt’s work with Schiele’s stark, evocative nudes and shows both artists at work during a tumultuous time for both Vienna and the rest of central Europe as well as the art world.
“Klimt & Schiele: Eros and Psyche,” recounts the start of the Vienna Secession — a magical art movement formed in the late 1890’s for art, literature and music, in which new ideas were circulated; Freud discovers the drives of the psyche, and women begin to claim their independence. It was a movement that marked a new era outside the confines of academic tradition.
At the heart of Secession were artists Gustav Klimt and his protégé and dear friend Egon Schiele. This exhibition proves an in-depth examination of images of extraordinary visual power, from the eroticism of Klimt’s mosaic-like works, to the anguished and raw work of the young Schiele in his magnetic nudes and contorted figures against the backdrop of nocturnal Vienna, full of masked balls and dreams imbued with sexuality.
If you haven’t guessed yet, this film features paintings and drawings of nude figures and sexual situations and may not be suitable for all audiences. Run time is 1 hour, 34 minutes.
The Great Art Wednesday series returns to Town Hall Theater in Middlebury on Sept. 4, at 11 a.m., with “Alexander Calder,” a film about the pioneering mobile artist.
Come see “Klimt & Schiele: Eros and Psyche” on Wednesday, July 10, at 11 a.m. Tickets are $13/ $8 students and are available at townhalltheater.org, by calling (802) 382-9222, at the THT box office, or at the door an hour before show time.