Art with Fabric Blog Hop....My turn

A few months ago I was asked by Alida from Tweety Loves Quilting to participate at this art blog hop. I was more than honored to be part of this blog hop with such a wonderful group of artists.

I chose the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt for his "golden period", in which he created incredible masterpieces of rich golden textures.

For instance, this amazing Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I  which could probably inspire 50 different quilts just by itself:

Portait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from Gustav Klimt

Although the above portrait is mesmerizing, I finally opted for this piece called The kiss (what can I say, I am a romantic!).  I loved the women's face, how she lost herself in her lover's embrace:
 

The Kiss from Gustav Klimt 

When I chose this author, I immediately realized I'd have to go on a serious shopping spree as my stash of fabrics was seriously lacking in gold and yellows.  "Gold" is a difficult color to reproduce without actually using golden fabric, so I chose different gradations of yellows with a touch of brown or orange:

seen on the wall with artificial light

Unlike the great quilt Kathy chose to do with the same art piece (serendipity!), my goal was not to reproduce this striking piece of art but to play with the texture Klimt created with gold leafs and paint; I wanted to hide clues of Klimt's paint within the quilt. I used a few red squares carefully spread in the design to represent the woman's colorful summer dress as she is engulfed by the golden mantle of her lover's embrace:

seen outside under sunlight

In Klimt's paint, the woman's dress also has long, flowing golden threads merging into the flowery grass. I used golden triangles appliqué on the brown margin to represent these threads, and used thread painting to embed them gradually into the background.

The whole design was fully archived with the improved piecing technique, in a flowing and organic way that, I felt, was well representing the author's piece.

So now, what next?  If I wanted to continue this project further, it could be interesting to create a matching quilt to represent the woman side of Klimt's piece: something more flowery and round, with a few carefully spread black squares to remind the viewer of her lover's embrace.  The two piece could then be hanged together on a wall, perhaps even with the "Man's" quilt overlapping the "Woman's" quilt...

What do you think? What part of these painting inspired you the most? How would you design the matching "woman" piece yourself?