An elegant representative of the Vienna Secession, Vito Timmel was an imaginative and highly changeable artist. He painted Post-Impressionist portraits and landscapes marked by intense colors and striking light effects, moving with ease between a naïve style and a Secessionist approach. Timmel was greatly appreciated by critics of his time. The originality of his line, his Nordic sensibility, and the expressive strength of his style are closely linked to his Viennese training, his involvement in Secessionist circles, and his fellow students at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, including Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele. Above all, they reflect the influence of his greatly admired teacher, Gustav Klimt.
Like Klimt, Timmel was able to blend diverse and seemingly contrasting inspirations, ranging from Byzantine art to Japanese art and Oriental decorative traditions in general. At the same time, he maintained a strong classical compositional structure, enriched by literary, mythological, and musical influences.

Around 1915, the first amazons began to appear in Timmel’s paintings and graphic works: female figures wearing wide-brimmed hats, as well as elegant ladies accompanied by dogs. These subjects captivate the viewer through their rich decorative settings, intentionally bold, provocative, and seductive poses, and the fashionable clothing they wear. In particular, the black-and-white striped dresses once again recall Vienna, the Jugendstil movement, and the “artistic dresses” designed by Koloman Moser and Gustav Klimt.

 

Amazzone, 1916

 

«Among these works, a particularly significant example is an amazon (1915) with red hair, depicted from behind, wearing a black dress with blue, red, and brown reflections that leaves her shoulders bare. The painting was later exhibited and reproduced in the catalogue of the Quadriennale di Torino. The same captivating red-haired female figure, dressed in the same iridescent black gown, reappears in a later painting (1916). This time she is shown in a frontal pose, slightly turned three-quarters, revealing a daring décolleté. The geometric and floral motifs clearly inspired by Jugendstil create a refined counterpoint to the color and the broad folds of the dress. »