Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, Vienna Secession, 1902

Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, Vienna Secession, 1902

A conversation with Khan Academy's Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

(Beethoven's 9th Symphony)

Steven: Our necks are getting
a little tired looking up

but it's well worth it.

We're in the Vienna Secession
building and we're looking at

Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze.

Beth: The secession artists decided
to do something really radical

and design something entirely
around a sculpture by Max Klinger

of Beethoven and their idea
was to make a total work of art

involving architecture,
sculpture, painting and music.

And the idea behind the
Gesamtkunstwerk, or a total work of art,

is to unite the arts and the
idea was that that unification

of the arts was something
that had been lost.

Steven: The notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk
had come from Richard Wagner

who had conceived of operas that
were, of course, music, speech,

but also set design and costume.

Something that was a totality of the arts

and it was this notion
of a kind of lost ideal.

Beth: At the opening of this exhibition,

Mahler's version of Beethoven's
9th Symphony was playing

and one can almost hear that music here.

Beethoven was seen as an isolated,
heroic, misunderstood genius.

Someone who the artists of the 19th
century could really identify with.

Just before painting the Beethoven Frieze,

Klimt himself had been terribly persecuted

for the frescos he made
for the university.

Steven: And so that idea of
alienation, of lone genius,

these are romantic notions that really
must have resonated at this moment.

Beth: Beethoven Frieze now resides in
the basement of the Secession building

in a room that exactly mirrors
the room that it first occupied.

Steven: The Frieze begins on the long
wall with a very spare composition.

Most of that long wall is
empty space, just plaster.

But at the top you see a series
of figures in long flowing gowns

that seem to float or almost
fly softly across the surface.

Beth: Their eyes are closed.

Their bodies are elongated
and these are genii,

or figures that represent the
idea of humanity's longing.

Steven: The genii are interrupted
in one area of the Frieze

which shows first a young girl,
a nude and we see her in profile.

She's virtually just an outline.

Her hands are clasped,
she seems quite timid

and seems to be embodying hope.

Beth: Next to her are two figures
on their knees who also are nude.

These figures represent suffering
humanity, pleading with a knight

who's decked out in golden armor
with two female figures above him,

representing ambition and compassion.

Steven: You can see that
ambition holds a laurel wreath

as if it's egging the knight on.

Beth: The figure of the knight
has a helmet at its feet

and carries an enormous sword.

Steven: There is this notion of
seeking a kind of heroic mythic figure

that could be a kind of savior.

Austria and Germany of course will
distort these ideas in terrible ways

where people are looking to insane
fanatical figures as their savior.

Think Hitler and others.

Beth: And in fact some
of those types of leaders

were emerging in Vienna in the 1890's.

So let's go on to the
next wall which represents

the forces that the knight is
here to save humanity from.

Steven: These are the forces of darkness.

That end wall is painted very
darkly and visually functions

as an obstacle through which
the knight needs to move.

He needs to both be able
to vanquish and also

to be able to resist the temptations.

Beth: On the far left of this end
wall we see the three gorgons.

Steven: Those are mythical Greek monsters.

They were three sisters
who had snakes for hair,

the most famous of which
of course is Medusa.

They were lethal but they're also
painted in a most seductive way.

Beth: And above those three
gorgons are the figures

of sickness, madness and death,
also represented by women.

The figure that takes up the largest
portion of the wall, however,

is the figure of just pure evil and
that's the mythic creature of Typhoeus.

Steven: When you look at Typhoeus
you can certainly recognize

his ape like head and chest but the
entire mass of decorative painting

to the right is also Typhoeus.

You can make out an
enormous bluish eagle wing

and below that a kind of infinitely
articulated almost serpent-like body.

Beth: And within that serpent and
wing we see another female figure

who represents gnawing grief.

Steven: Whereas so many of
the other figures are rendered

in brilliant golds or blues,
she is all grey and black.

Draped not only with her
own hair but in a thin veil.

Beth: The figures just to the
right of Typhoeus represent

lasciviousness, wantonness
and intemperance.

Steven: The genii do emerge and
the last wall is light again.

Beth: This wall represents a kind
of salvation for mankind in the arts

and so we see a figure playing a
lyre representing poetry and music.

Steven: She's just beautifully
draped in brilliant gold.

There's a heavily ornamented
surface that you can see

the appliquĂŠ's on her dress
are actually built up with gems

that reflect the light.

Beth: It's almost like an
ancient Greek vase painting

in its linear and decorative qualities.

In this last portion of the Frieze,
the genii now emerge vertically.

There's a sense of fulfillment,
that longing has been satisfied.

Steven: They look like they're
enraptured and they seem to be moving

almost in a kind of
rhythmic response to music.

At the end of the 9th Symphony,
Beethoven incorporates a poem

called the Ode to Joy by Schiller
which is this triumphant piece of music

where an enormous number of voices
harmoniously rise to the music

and express a kind of intense fulfillment.

Beth: One of the lines
in Schiller's Ode to Joy

is "a kiss to the whole world"
and in this phallic shape

at the very end we see a man
and a woman in an embrace,

wrapped in a golden decorative cocoon
with the sun and moon on either side.

Steven: In fact water seems to swirl
around them, binding them together

and their bodies are so close
they seem to almost merge.

Neither of their heads are
visible so they are, their love,

it is this summation of the yearning
that this entire Frieze has been about

and it seems to be such a perfect
visual expression of the way

in which Beethoven's music comes to
a kind of extraordinary crescendo.

(Beethoven's 9th Symphony)