Beethoven Frieze: centre wall

The centre wall was conceived as a pictorial paraphrase of the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and depicted the struggle for happiness undertaken by a knight in armour who, vanquishing the ‘hostile powers’, leads ‘weak humanity’ into the realm of the arts.

The painting represents the hostile forces: Typhoeus, the giant, against whom even gods fought in vain, and his daughters, the three Gorgons. The longings and wishes of mankind fly over their heads. In the centre of the group lurks Typhoeus, a giant monkey-like monster, which according to mythology, is the offspring of the earth goddess, Gaia, and the god of the underworld, Tartaros. To his left side are his daughters, the three Gorgons: “sickness, madness, and death.” On his right side, Typhoeus’s other daughters appear: “lust, unchastity and intemperance.” Above the Gorgons, the skeletal female figure of death lurks in unmatched dramatism.

Klimt’s contemporaries were particularly worked up about the three Gorgons, with their total nudity and lasciviousness and vehemently protested against them.

Away from the crowded figures, in front of the ugly snake body and the mighty wings of the monster, crouches the “Nagender Kummer” (Gnawing Grief), a meagre female figure whose expressiveness is particularly striking.