Beethoven Frieze: right wall

The “Sehns�chte und W�nsche der Menschheit” (Longings and Desires of Mankind) return on the connecting right wall as a horizontal floating procession and move on until they are stopped by the lonely figure of “Poetry.

Here “the longing for happiness finds its end in poetry.” Klimt presents the figure of Poetry in a manner inspired by ancient examples. Klimt also draws on the repertoires of ancient, Egyptian, and archaic cultures in many other of the frieze’s motifs.

A vertical group of crouching women, called “Die K�nste” (The Arts), reach from floor to ceiling like a living pillar, leading to the “Chor der Paradiesesengel” (Choir of Angels from Paradise).

The Choir of Angels from Paradise essentially corresponds to Beethoven’s closing chorus of Schiller’s “Ode an die Freude” (Ode to Joy). With raised hands and closed eyes, the floating female figures sing the song of joy. In the exhibition catalogue, Klimt’s female choir is characterized as follows: “The arts lead us into the ideal kingdom, which is the only place we can find pure joy, pure happiness, and pure love. ‘Joy, thy purest spark divine, this kiss to all the world’.”

His pictorial representation of the “kiss to all the world” manifests itself in the form of an embracing naked couple, which also signals the climax and finale of the frieze.

Klimt’s symbolic union corresponds to Schiller’s verse “Joy, thy purest spark divine. This kiss to all the world!” as set to music by Beethoven in the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony.