Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze is the supreme monument of Viennese modernism in the visual arts. Compelling in its storyline and provocative for its sexual display, it remains among Vienna’s most visited destinations and one of the world’s great artworks. Created in 1902 as Klimt’s most ambitious work, the frieze addresses how happiness is achieved. The answer is simple: the arts offer the highest form of human happiness. But getting there is hard, in life and in the frieze. Klimt’s unprecedented mix of media and cryptic symbols elude easy access. Understanding this work means digging into Klimt’s processes and into what led to the frieze’s survival. It means tracing connections to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner, the thought of Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud, the architecture of Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Adolf Loos, and the yearnings of the public in rapidly changing Vienna.
With essays by distinguished scholars Joseph Leo Koerner, Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, Wolfgang Baatz, and Christian Hauer, and an introduction by Sylvia Liska, this richly illustrated book is the essential guide to Klimt’s masterpiece.

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was one of the most important representatives of the Viennese Art Nouveau movement. He was a co-founder of the Vienna Secession and served as its first president from 1897 to 1899. He became famous for his ornamental style, characterized by decorative patterns and the use of gold leaf. Along with the Beethoven Frieze, works such as the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1903–07) and The Kiss (1907–08) remain among his most celebrated paintings today.