他最知名的作品是一系列题为10蚀刻在手套的查找释义（打印1881）。这些照片是在此基础上来到克林格在梦中以溜冰场发现的手套后的图像。在leitmotivic手套，属于女人的脸我们永远的设备看，克林格预期的研究弗洛伊德和克拉夫特阿兵上神物对象。在这种情况下，手套成为艺术家的浪漫渴望一个符号，发现本身，在各板，在不同的戏剧性的情况，以及执行我们所期望的心爱她自己的身影履行的角色。符号学家也看到在没有手套滑动能指的例子，或能指符号所指，在这种情况下，女人这克林格小心隐瞒身份。该板块建议各种心理状态或面临被艺术家主角（谁有惊人的相似之处年轻克林格）生存危机。

克林格遍游欧洲各地的艺术中心多年来在1893年至1897年，他主要集中在雕塑回到莱比锡之前; 他的大理石像贝多芬是不可分割的一部分维也纳分离派的1902年展览。

克林格被许多艺术家（尤其是引契里科）所购之间的主要纽带象征 19世纪的运动和开始形而上学和超现实主义在20世纪的运动。小行星 22369克林格在他的荣誉命名。

His best known work is a series of ten etchings entitled Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove (printed 1881). These pictures were based on images which came to Klinger in dreams after finding a glove at an ice-skating rink. In the leitmotivic device of a glove—belonging to a woman whose face we never see—Klinger anticipated the research of Freud and Krafft-Ebing on fetish objects. In this case, the glove becomes a symbol for the artist's romantic yearnings, finding itself, in each plate, in different dramatic situations, and performing the role that we might expect the figure of the beloved herself to fulfil. Semioticians have also seen in the symbol of the glove an example of a sliding signifier, or signifier without signified—in this case, the identity of the woman which Klinger is careful to conceal. The plates suggest various psychological states or existential crises faced by the artist protagonist (who bears a striking resemblance to the young Klinger).

Klinger traveled extensively around the art centres of Europe for years before returning to Leipzig in 1893. From 1897 he mostly concentrated on sculpture; his marble statue of Beethoven was an integral part of theVienna Secession exhibit of 1902.

Klinger was cited by many artists (notably Giorgio de Chirico) as being a major link between the symbolist movement of the 19th century and the start of themetaphysical and Surrealist movements of the 20th century. Asteroid 22369 Klinger is named in his honor.