klimt vs klimt, an online google exhibition recreating works lost during WWII

TECHNOLOGY HELPED RESTORE DISAPPEARED KLIMT MASTERPIECES

google has made available through their arts and culture app a comprehensive retrospective on austrian symbolist painter gustav klimt. titled klimt vs klimt – the man of contradictions, the exhibition joins previous projects such as art selfie and the virtual frida kahlo exhibition faces of frida.

curated by klimt-expert dr. franz smola, the online hub showcases 700 assets including paintings, drawings, letters and illustrations, many of which have been digitized for the first time.

63 KLIMT MASTERPIECES DIGITALLY ARRANGED UNDER ONE SINGLE ONLINE VIEWING ROOM

the klimt vs klimt – the man of contradictions exhibition by google arts & culture can be toured in an augmented reality pocket gallery, were 63 of klimt’s masterpieces have been digitally arranged under one single online viewing room. viewers can virtually move around the gallery space and zoom in and out the paintings which have been digitized in ultra-high resolution.

the show is also presenting a reconstruction of klimt’s faculty paintings, lost in a fire in 1945. the artworks were rebuilt using AI technology which colored the works pulling from archival data and scholarly research. documented only in black and white, the images now reveal a rich and saturated color palette.

‘the result for me was surprising because we were able to color it even in the places where we had no knowledge,’ said dr. franz smola, curator at the belvedere museum. ‘with machine learning we have good assumptions that klimt used certain colors.’

over 100 thematic tours, comprised of unfinished sketches, videos and digitized ephemera, are now available online for the first time. klimt and the erotic is charged with erotic, politically charged and artistically revolutionary works which explore the artist’s admiration for woman. klimt’s golden phase dives into the hallmark that earned the painter a permanent place in history.