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Art lovers gain essence of history with Gustav Klimt-inspired perfume

Published: 08 Dec. 2023, 16:56 Updated: 08 Dec. 2023, 17:50

Susanne Angerholzer, art curator and spouse of Austrian ambassador to Korea, speaks with the Korea JoongAng Daily at the diplomatic residence of Austria in Seoul recently. [PARK SANG-MOON]

VIENNA, Austria — Fans of Gustav Klimt in Korea may soon be brought closer to the artist, a product of turn-of-the-century modernism in Vienna.

It comes in a vial.

"It's perfume, made with the scent of roses Klimt cared for and painted in his gardens in Vienna," says Susanne Angerholzer, curator and exhibition facilitator of contemporary art and spouse of the Austrian ambassador to Korea.

Angerholzer has recently witnessed the work of Julia Asenbaum, a biologist and botanical artist in Austria, as she conducted a method called headspace analysis to collect the aroma chemicals released by the roses in the garden of the Klimt Villa. The villa was the artist's final abode in Vienna before he died in 1918.

Asenbaum would collect 400 different aroma chemicals hovering just above the flowers of the roses to produce the perfume.

Based on her analysis, these chemicals include the Cis3 Hexanol, which smells like fresh-cut green grass; Limonene and Citral, which smells of orange and lemon; Citronellol, or the powdery scent of the rose flower; and the apple notes Alpha and Beta Damascone, presenting a smell like fresh green apples. Other aroma chemicals smell like honey, as well as cloves.

“I think it would be a really interesting collaboration if it could be brought to Seoul, given that there is already huge interest from Koreans in the artist himself,” said Angerholzer.

Klimt's Rose by Julia Asenbaum at the Klimt Villa. [ESTHER CHUNG]

Exhibitions on Klimt in Korea have garnered large audiences, with a media-art exhibition dedicated to Klimt's works in Jeju in 2018 attracting some 400,000 visitors in eight months.

Many also visit Vienna and the Belvedere Palace to see Klimt's "Kiss" in person. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, as many as 123,500 Korean tourists flocked to Vienna annually, and last year, Korean tourists accounted for the largest proportion of Asian tourists to the city, according to the Vienna Tourist Board.

The very Damask roses Klimt is believed to have raised can be seen at the villa today, though visitors are recommended to visit between May and June to see them in full bloom.

The roses are often included in Klimt's paintings.

The rose bushes are in the Orchard with Roses in 1912, the Stoclet Frieze, as well in the panels of mosaics in the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. A sea of roses often forms the background of female figures Klimt painted, as well as in his landscape paintings such as the Roses under Trees.

“Roses are always there,” said Angerholzer, pointing to the motifs frequently appearing in the backdrop of Klimt’s portraits of women that shot him to popularity among the Haute bourgeoise families in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century.

Gustav Klimt's The Rose Garden, 1911, at the Klimt Villa. [ESTHER CHUNG]

That Klimt was an avid gardener is also obvious in the accounts of his closest friends.

“Every year, Klimt had the garden surrounding the house in the Feldmuhlgasse planted with flowers, it was a joy to arrive amid blossoms and old trees,” Egon Schiele, also a famed Austrian artist and a close friend of Klimt, wrote in one of his accounts.

Visitors to the villa can buy the perfume Klimt’s Rose, which can also be purchased at Fragrantarium run by Asenbaum. The villa has also started to take in waitlist requests to purchase the stems of the rose bushes from the garden.

Klimt’s Villa, renovated by the Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth in Austria in 2012, is the only surviving atelier of the artist among those he had in Vienna.

Within a few minutes of walking distance from Unter St. Veit metro station, the villa is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Wednesday to Sunday, and also on public holidays.