Masterpieces Of Vienna (27 of 38)

Masterpieces Of Vienna

In the baroque Belvedere Palace in Vienna, hangs one of the most haunting paintings of the 20th century.
It actually is moving and disturbing and disruptive beyond belief.
It was a picture that actually made me cry.
A painting of two lovers clinging to each other, seemingly on the edge of an abyss.
What it does convey is the idea of a universal human theme which is very important to all of us.
I mean on the one hand, death, on the other hand, sex.
The picture contains an unusual autobiographical story.
Painted by one of Vienna's young geniuses, Egon Schiele, this is his tribute to his lover who stood by him in his darkest hour and whom he discarded ruthlessly.

But death was to stalk both this picture and the artist who painted it.
Although the male figure is staring out at us in this very, very, very, very cold, chill way, you do have a question mark in your mind, whether he's dead or alive.
This is a painting that looks at the end of a relationship and also hints at the end of the world.
Death And The Maiden was painted in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where a decaying power gave birth to a culture of innovation and anxiety.
Extremist political ideas and the new science of psychoanalysis flourished in a climate that combined aggression with morbid doubt.
In the early years of the 20th century, this empire was described as the second weakest among the world's great powers.
Out of this ferment came Death And The Maiden, painted in 1915.