Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 near Vienna. He was the second of seven children in an unusually talented family. His father was a bohemian gold smith.

Together with his younger brother Ernst he joined the newly founded School of Applied Arts in Vienna when he was only 14 because of their exceptional talent. They became acquainted with oil painting, fresco and mosaic techniques.

To every age its art, to every art its freedom.

1897

Foundation of the Vienna Secession

Artistical independence from the traditional art school and creation of the Secession building (Joseph Maria Obrich) for expositions and meetings. Above the entrance can still be read the famous phrase

"to every age its art and to all art its freedom".

Oh boy, do you really have to spy on me when I'm in the middle of this fantastic Schubertiade?

1899

Schubert at the piano

Klimt shows his interest for other forms of art, especially those which include a sense of fugaciousness, such as live musical events. The use of light and beauty versus darkness, sickness and death. Who could portray those traits better than Schubert?

The achievement of joy and meaning through music and poetry. Embrace to humankind in vibrant lines and rhythmical flotation of human bodies on flower beds, crowned by a golden kiss freeing everybody with the magic of art and love from suffering and individual death.

1902

Beethoven Frieze

For the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition Klimt created the famous Beethoven Frieze in a monumental size painted directly on the walls. Gustav Mahler arranged the famous choir of Beethoven's IX symphony for wind orchestra for the occasion, then present also a polychrome sculpture of Beethoven by Max Klinger. The journey of human yearning ends in the discovery of joy by means of the arts coupled with love and companionship, as shown by the close embrace of a kiss.