Who painted "Der Blinde" ("The Blind Man")?

Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art.

Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

In the 1890s, Klimt painted a variety of commissioned male portraits. At the time, he would create several male studies, among which was "The Blind Man". Male portraits are rare in Klimt’s oeuvre – none can be found in his later work.The fact that Klimt included this among four more paintings in the first Secession exhibition is proof that he attributed a high level of artistic value to the work.

Klimt poses the blind man in a dusky side light, transforming the deep ridges and sunken cheeks into traits of suffering. And yet, this aged man with his wonderful shock of white hair lives on in a body with a dignified bearing. Loose gestural brushstrokes and the soft, partially diffused application of paint stand in direct contrast with the precise and almost photorealistic painting style, a feature of Klimt’s works at the time.