Synopsis "Gustav Klimt and Medicine: The Flow of Life"
Taking Klimt’s lost painting Medicine as a starting point, this authoritative volume examines the relationship between art, medicine, and modern thought in Vienna around 1900.
Gustav Klimt’s Medicine sparked outrage for its challenge to conventional ideas about science and ignited a controversy that became one of the defining cultural battles of its time. Withdrawn by the artist and destroyed during World War II, Medicine remains one of the most fascinating lost masterpieces of modern art.
Through paintings, drawings and archival photographs, this volume reconstructs the history, meaning, and legacy of the work while placing it within the intellectual ferment of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Essays explore the connections between art, anatomy, psychology, philosophy and evolutionary theory, revealing how deeply Klimt engaged with the ideas transforming society.
Reproductions of preparatory studies and related masterpieces—including The Three Ages of Life, Hope I, Hope II, Death and Life, and The Kiss—show how the “flow of life” that runs through Klimt’s work shaped his enduring fascination with birth and death, sexuality and desire, consciousness and human transformation.
Documents in unprecedented detail the impact of Gustav Klimt’s painting, Medicine.Authors are experts in the field of art history, and on medicine and cultural studiesSheds light on the creative milieu of the time as well as Klimt's allegories of lifeRichly illustrated with Klimt’s artworks, essays are interspersed with plate sectionsIdeal for readers interested in the intersections of art, medicine, and philosophy Essential reading for Klimt enthusiasts, this volume offers a fresh perspective on a lost masterpiece and the remarkable era that produced it.
