THE BEETHOVEN FRIEZE
This extremely large-scale frieze--coming in at 7 feet high and a whopping 112 feet wide as it wraps around several walls--was created for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition in 1902. It was part of an assemblage referred to as a "Gesamtkunstwerk" or a "total art work" meant to unite the arts (painting, sculpture, and music). For this exhibition, the artists celebrated the idea of the misunderstood, lone hero of Beethoven. Max Klinger created a massive sculpture of Beethoven and Klimt created this wall mural based on Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
At first we see figures representing a suffering humanity pleading with a golden knight for deliverance and protection. The two figures above the knight represent Ambition, holding a laurel wreath, and Compassion.
This next section represents the hostile forces attacking humanity. From the left, we see the Three Gorgons with Medusa in the middle. Above them are personifications of Sickness, Madness, and Death.The large gorilla-like figure is actually not an animal but the mythical figure of Typhon or Typhoeus, an enormous winged serpent meant to represent evil itself. To the right of Typhoeus are the figures of Lasciviousness, Wantoness, and Intemperance. And finally, all alone and held within one of Typhoeus' wings is a woman, head bent and covered in a black veil, representing Grief.
Next is a transition panel of spirits protecting the idea of the salvation of humanity through the arts, here seen by a figure with a lyre representing music and poetry.
And our resolution panel shows more genii (spirits) at the left, seemingly in ecstasy in a column of gold. This is clearly the part where Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" would be playing. A celestial choir sings behind two embracing figures surrounded by water and fire and capped by the sun and the moon. Humanity is saved.
The murals have been preserved and are on display in a basement gallery at the Association of Fine Artists Vienna Secession.
MEDICINE
Prader also recreated one of Klimt's most controversial pieces, a mural called Medicine, the second of the University of Vienna Ceiling Paintings, presented in March 1901 at the 10th Secessionist Exhibition. Because Klimt dared to portray Death in The River of Life (witness the skeleton amongst humanity), he received criticism from physicians and university officials for intimating that medicine is powerless to prevent death. The painting was unfortunately destroyed by Nazis in WW II. The piece and many other master works were being held at the Nazi-occupied Schloss Immendorf but as opposition forces advanced, they burned the castle and all its contents rather than have it fall into "enemy" hands.
DEATH AND LIFE
Painted between 1908 and 1915, Klimt returned to a recurring theme of the contrast and juxtaposition of life and all it entails (birth, love, joy, sorrow, age) against the specter of inevitable death. Prader has taken some liberties here with her recreation adding a dark angel attending Death and the presence of two men at the far right, one of whom seems to be an artist with brushes in hand.
http://www.prader.at/
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