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 Withdrawn by the artist and destroyed during World War II, Medicine remains one of the most fascinating lost masterpieces of modern art.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 studies . Sheds light on the creative milieu of the time as well as . Klimt's allegories of life . Richly illustrated with Klimt's artworks, essays are interspersed with plate sections . Ideal 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. AUTHORS: Tobias G. Natter is an art historian, expert on Austrian art, and author of the most recent catalogue raisonné of all paintings by Gustav Klimt (2012). He served as Chief Curator at the Belvedere Museum and was Director of the Leopold Museum, both in Vienna. In 2014, he founded the Natter Fine Arts agency, which focuses on estimating the value of artworks and the development of exhibitions on Vienna around 1900. Dr. Christiane Druml is a trained lawyer and bioethicist. She was Vice Rector of the Medical University of Vienna from 2011 to 2015 and has since been Director of the Josephinum Medical History Museum Vienna. She has been chair of the Austrian Bioethics Commission since 2007 and has headed the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the Medical University of Vienna since 2016. Univ.-Prof., Dr. med. Markus Müller, born in Klagenfurt, studied medicine at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1993 sub auspiciis praesidentis. He trained as a specialist in internal medicine in Austria, Sweden, and the USA. He has been Rector of the Medical University of Vienna since 2015. He has been President of the Supreme Health Council since 2018 and Vice-President of the Austrian Universities Conference since 2023. 97 colour, 87 b/w illustrations