Art

The Chromatic Symphonies of Gustav Klimt

An exhibition at the Belvedere reveals the Viennese artist's creative process and reconstructs his lost allegories

by Flavia Foradini

14 August 2025

Gustav Kilmt, Giurisprudenza, ricolorata.

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Key points

Fire at Immendorf Castle
Belvedere

3' min read

It is largely thanks to the descriptions of art critics and publicists active in the first decades of the 20th century that we now have an idea of what the chromatic splendour of the three allegories 'Philosophy', 'Medicine' and 'Jurisprudence', which the University of Vienna commissioned Gustav Klimt in 1894 to paint on the ceiling of the Aula Magna, must have looked like.

In the spring of 1900 'Philosophy' was premiered at the Secession, causing a great stir, and the same happened with 'Medicine' the following year, as well as with 'Jurisprudence' in 1903, the year in which the three allegories were presented together.

The University deemed the three monumental works inappropriate and outrageous and rejected them. It was a scandal that greatly upset the Viennese art world and marked the end of public commissions for the artist.

With the help of patrons, first and foremost August Lederer, an enraged Klimt returned the advance he had received in 1905 and took the paintings back. 'Philosophy' and 'Jurisprudence' were bought by Lederer, 'Medicine' by the Österreichische Galerie at the Belvedere.

Al Belvedere dissonanze armonie nei colori del Gustav Klimt perduto
Photogallery8 foto

Fire at Immendorf Castle

Shortly after the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, the fabulous Lederer collection was confiscated and in 1943 the three paintings were exhibited together one last time at the Secession. Immediately after the closure of the exhibition, together with many other valuable works, they were secured from bombing in Immendorf Castle in Lower Austria, where they allegedly burnt in a fire set by a handful of SS retreating Russian troops at the very end of the conflict.

Doubts as to the actual fate of those paintings have never been dispelled: investigations by the local authorities were sloppy and no analysis of the ashes, the rubble or the ground where the castle stood was carried out.

Belvedere

Until 7 September, the new exhibition at the Lower Belvedere is entitled 'Gustav Klimt. Pigment and Pixel. Rediscovering art with technology", a remarkable and engaging journey through the artistic and scientific creation of numerous works by the Viennese artist, including the three allegories, reconstructing the various phases of creation, the choice of materials, including precious metals, the composition, the characters, and the changes, even conspicuous ones, during the course of the work. Among the paintings analysed are 'Judith I' (1901), 'Water Snakes I' (1904-7), 'Country House on Lake Attersee' (1914), the portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl (1917-18) and Woman in White (1917-18). For one of his most famous paintings, 'The Kiss' (1908), analysis revealed that the entire first layer of the painting's background consists of brass leaf. On top of it Klimt spread an oily base, on which he scattered flakes of gold leaf. For the couple's clothing, the artist used not only gold leaf but also silver and platinum leaf.

For the three allegories, with the exception of 'Medicine', of which there is an oil sketch by the artist, only black and white photographs have survived. And so, together with Google Arts & Culture, the Belvedere's experts around curator Franz Smola have also attempted a reconstruction of the colours, carried out both on the basis of the analysis of other works by Klimt and the evocative descriptions of observers and critics of the time.

In the words of the critic Ludwig Hevesi, 'Philosophy' presented itself as 'a mystical symphony of greens and blues', while the journalist Karl Schreder described it as 'an aquarium bathed in green light', in which the looming figure of the Sphinx presented itself as 'a dense green mist from which emerges a stone face, motionless, dark, like that of an ancient Egyptian sphinx'. All in all, Hevesi recalled, 'Philosophy' was a symphony of a thousand shades of green, blue, violet, grey, and even yellow shimmering like gold.

For 'Medicine', thanks to Klimt's preliminary study, we know that the figure of the goddess Hygieia was kept in shades of red, while the figure of Death was dominated by blue. Hevesi wrote again about 'Medicine': "Whereas in 'Philosophy' green and blue form a cold harmony, in 'Medicine' tones from pink to bright purple predominate, but with a striking dissonance: the figure of Death is veiled in blue, and on the opposite side blue also returns for the figure of the infant", while "on the horizon, in the haze of dawn, the first flashes of sunlight already want to emerge".

'Jurisprudence', on the other hand, Hevesi noted, 'is all about black and gold', an allegory like 'a glittering Byzantine mosaic', where 'black is not black at all, because it plays with a thousand transparencies'.

"Gustav Klimt. Pigment and Pixel. Rediscovering Art with Technology", Lower Belvedere, Vienna, curated by Franz Smola, until 7 September