Klimt’s nomination for a professorship was withdrawn as, interestingly, was Sigmund Freud’s. Medicine and Jurisprudence were considered offenses against public morals. Klimt’s Philosophy shows an entranced priestess with wine leaves in her hair - Nietzsche’s drunken poetess - surrounded by floating, entangled bodies, a vision that Vienna’s establishment found repugnant philosophy was supposed to be a rational affair. Oh man, take heed: What does the deep midnight say? I was asleep, asleep From a deep dream I woke The world is deep Deeper than the day has known Deep in its woe – Desire – deeper still than a heartbreak Woe speaks: Go die! Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht Tief ist ihr Weh – Lust – tiefer noch als Herzeleid Weh spricht: Vergeh! Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit - Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit O Mensch! Gib Acht Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? Ich schlief und schlief Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht Die Welt ist tief. His interpretation of Philosophy can be seen as an illustration of Nietzsche’s ‘Drunken Song of Midnight from ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’, (which Gustav Mahler had used as the center of his Third Symphony): Klimt received a commission from the city for murals depicting Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence. In Schnitzler’s ‘Traumnovelle’ ( dream novella), the protagonists move constantly between dream and reality, which become fused in the reader’s mind (this work was the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s last film ‘Eyes Wide Shut’), - leaving interpretation wide open. In a letter, Freud congratulates Schnitzler on his insights into the psyche of man. Freud not only uses literature to make his points, but he was also aware of similar interests expressed by the young contemporary writers of his time, e.g., Hugo von Hofmannsthal (who wrote many librettos for Richard Strauss) and Arthur Schnitzler. In Nietzsche’s view, the concept of the self, the ‘I’ is a literary ‘I’, constituted in and through language Nietzsche’s aphorisms – fragments – are to be seen as such and are not to be seen in reference to a ‘whole’ - the world is a text.įor Sigmund Freud, the self and the ‘I’ become the subject of his dream analysis which also shows us a textual construct, the language of dream itself. On her left side is Silenius, the drunken companion of Dionysos, and on her right, the Sphinx, the child-eating mother, symbol of terror and female beauty – representing buried instinctual forces.įriedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy as well as Sigmund Freud’s just-published ‘Traumdeutung’ ( Interpretation of Dreams – 1899) were widely read by, and inspired the Secessionist artists, in particular, Max Burckhard, a Nietzschean, who was the director of the Burgtheater and the co-editor of the Secession’s journal, Ver Sacrum. Here, the young girl, depicted as tragic muse, is playing the kithera - instrument of Apollo, god of light and music - but her song is Dionysian (Friedrich Nietzsche had used the same symbols in The Birth of Tragedy). The instinctual becomes the subject of Klimt’s painting ‘Die Musik’ (Music). Over the entrance, within the gilded oriental decoration, are the entangled heads of the Medusas which emphasize the instinctual, irrational elements in art. The Secession building by Josef Maria Olbrich became their temple of art, a refuge for the art lover, and the inscription on the left side of the building, Ver Sacrum ( Sacred Spring), became their motto – art forever to be renewed – no longer just an imitation of an ancient past. Just as the young architects had objected earlier to the historicism of the Ringstrasse buildings, Klimt and his fellow artists now also refuted the established traditions of academic painting, in order to create the art of their time, searching for a new message and a new language, which became known as the Vienna Secession. He subsequently became the portrait painter of Vienna’s rich and famous. Gustav Klimt started his career as architectural decorator just as the Ringstrasse program of monumental building entered its final phase – in fact, he had been hired to decorate the interior staircase of the Fine Arts Museum.
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