More Than Pretty

Klimt's gold style was beautiful, but it was also a serious argument about what art could be:

• Decoration could be deep — he treated pattern and ornament as real ideas, not just surface polish
• Beauty could be daring — his sensual subjects unsettled polite Vienna even as crowds admired them
• Craft could be art — by using a goldsmith's material, he erased the line between fine art and decorative art

He made luxury feel intelligent. That, more than the gold itself, is why his work still feels modern.