Goldfish (1901-1902 CE)

Gustav Klimt’s Goldfish (German: Goldfische) is a tall, narrow painting that immediately draws the eye with its dreamlike mix of sensuality and defiance. In a shadowy aquatic realm, several nude women with flowing hair float and swim alongside a large golden fish. The most striking figure—a red-haired woman in the foreground—turns her head to meet the viewer’s gaze while deliberately presenting her ample backside. Created between 1901 and 1902, the work is at once decorative, erotic, and sharply humorous, offering a first glimpse into Klimt’s bold response to public criticism and his fascination with the female form submerged in nature.

Born from Scandal: The Story Behind the Canvas

Klimt painted Goldfish during a turbulent period in his career. In the late 1890s and early 1900s he had been commissioned to create three large ceiling paintings—Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence—for the University of Vienna’s Great Hall. When these works were unveiled, they provoked fierce outrage. Critics and officials condemned the frank nudity, the swirling mass of bodies, and the unconventional, almost chaotic style. The medical profession in particular rejected Medicine, and the controversy became one of Vienna’s major art scandals around 1900.  

At the same time, Klimt was denied a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts despite the unanimous recommendation of the faculty. Frustrated and defiant, he channelled his anger into this new painting. He originally intended to title it “To My Critics” or “To My Detractors,” making the message unmistakable. Friends persuaded him to change the name to the more innocuous Goldfish before the work’s public debut. The painting was first shown at the XIII Exhibition of the Vienna Secession in February–March 1902.

The Artist’s Witty Retort

Contemporary accounts reveal the painting’s personal edge. The Austrian writer Felix Salten later recalled that Klimt’s reply to the university scandal was a laconic visual statement: a work that presented the viewer with a prominently convex “backside.” Some observers noted that Klimt could just as easily have called it “Götz von Berlichingen”—a reference to the famous German expression that essentially means “kiss my ass.”  

Art critics of the day recognized the red-haired figure as a modern “Venus Kallipygos” (Venus of the Beautiful Buttocks). Ludwig Hevesi, a supportive critic close to the Secession circle, linked the series of water-nymph paintings—including Goldfish—to the erotic undercurrents of both the Faculty Paintings and the near-contemporary Beethoven Frieze. The work was therefore understood not merely as decoration but as a deliberate, playful provocation aimed squarely at Klimt’s conservative opponents.

Symbolism, Scandal, and the Secession Spirit

Goldfish belongs to Klimt’s broader exploration of aquatic nymphs and water spirits, a theme that runs through works such as Moving Water (1898), Silver Fish, and the later Water Serpents I and II. In the cultural climate of fin-de-siècle Vienna, water and nude female figures often symbolized the mysterious, seductive, and sometimes dangerous forces of nature and the unconscious.  

Artistically, the painting stands at the intersection of Symbolism and Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). Its vertical, tower-like arrangement of bodies echoes the human column in Klimt’s Philosophy, while the decorative patterns, flowing hair, and golden accents anticipate the richer ornamentation of his later “Golden Phase.” Within the Vienna Secession, the work embodied the group’s challenge to academic conservatism and its embrace of modern, sensual, and highly stylized imagery. The provocative pose was both a personal jab at critics and a broader assertion of artistic freedom in a society still tightly bound by bourgeois morality.

Materials, Scale, and Craft

The painting is executed in oil on canvas and measures 181 cm × 67 cm (71.3 in × 26.4 in). Its unusually tall and narrow proportions create a sense of upward movement, as if the figures are rising or drifting through deep water. Klimt employed a rich palette in which the golden tones of the large fish contrast with the darker blues and greens of the surrounding depths. Flowing lines of hair and stylized aquatic plants weave the composition together, giving the surface a decorative, almost tapestry-like quality typical of his work around 1901–1902. Some descriptions note the presence of gold leaf or gold-toned passages that heighten the luminous effect of the central fish.

From Vienna Gallery to Swiss Bedroom—and Beyond

After its creation, Goldfish was acquired from Galerie Arnot in Vienna. In 1919 it was given as an engagement present by Otto Dübi to Gertrud Müller. The couple hung the painting in their bedroom for the rest of their lives. Upon their deaths the work entered the Dübi-Müller Foundation and was deposited at the Kunstmuseum Solothurn in Switzerland, where it remains today. This quiet domestic chapter contrasts sharply with the painting’s original public notoriety, yet it also ensured the work’s survival and careful preservation. Today visitors to the Kunstmuseum Solothurn can still encounter Klimt’s golden fish and smiling nymphs—an enduring testament to one artist’s witty and unapologetic reply to his critics.