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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" -
Interest in other arts such as music
Schubert at the piano, painting -
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. -
The Kiss
Perhaps the most famous painting by Klimt it features a monumental kiss, an oil painting on canvas adding silver and gold leaves in the Jugendstil, of which it became an Icon.
It was painted between 1907 and 1908 during the height of Klimt's "Golden Period" and can now be seen in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna. -
Tree of Life - Stoclet Frieze
The Stoclet Frieze is a series of three mosaics commissioned for the Palais Stoclet in Brussels and placed along three walls of the Palais' dining room. The designs are decorated with a variety of luxury materials, including marble, ceramic, gilded tiles and enamel along with pearls and other semi-precious stones. -
Death and Life
This is another oil on canvas painting by the Austrian symbolist painter, whose paintings are marked by a sensual eroticism, one of his main subjects being he female body. It was started in 1908 and completed in 1915. It is created in an Art Nouveau (Modern) style by use of allegorical painting genre during his Golden phase. Klimt makes of it a modern dance of death, but unlike Schiele, he introduces a note of hope and reconciliation. It is now housed at the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
