Gustav Klimt - The Faculty Paintings

The so-called "Faculty Paintings" were commissioned pieces that Gustav Klimt produced with his colleague, Franz Matsch, for the University of Vienna. In 1894, the University requested five paintings to decorate the ceiling of the large auditorium. Each of the school’s four faculties was to receive a painting to represent it as an allegory. An additional painting was also to be produced for the ceiling centerpiece.

...and a figure of Hygieia, who was worshipped in Greek mythology as the goddess of medicine.

He used the collective Secession exhibitions cleverly to unveil his Faculty Paintings to the eagerly awaiting press and public. The pictures created a scandal, yet still managed to draw a great crowd of visitors.

When "Philosophy" was presented in 1900, professors from the University of Vienna, for whose auditorium the painting was intended, were outraged. For them, Klimt's illustration had nothing in common with the meaning of philosophy as they understood it. In their eyes, it was more like Klimt was making fun of the subject of philosophy.

At the unveiling of "Medicine" the following year, even politicians got involved. Conservative representatives strongly criticized the Education Minister, who had commissioned Klimt, and demanded his resignation. Furthermore, copies of the sixth issue of the Secession magazine, Ver Sacrum, which contained pencil sketches for the "Medicine" painting, were confiscated on the grounds that they were a danger to public morality. Nonetheless, the confiscation order was lifted shortly thereafter.

The Faculty Paintings were undoubtedly seen as controversial for their unsparing show of nudity. Gustav Klimt used the themes of eroticism and sexuality more distinctly than anyone in Vienna had ever dared until this point and did not shy away from using the elderly or the heavily pregnant, for example, as nudes.

At the same time, it became problematic that the artist interpreted the concept of an allegory in such an unusual manner. Generally speaking, allegorical illustrations were positive, idealized representations of an idea, such as in Jan Vermeer's "The Art of Painting." Klimt's pictures, on the other hand, are hardly idealized. Their endless, flowing figures seem instead to suggest people exposed to a world of chaos.They interpret humanity as an involuntary tool used by dark forces with a general feeling of pessimism.

After the University of Vienna had spoken out against Klimt's paintings, it was decided not to place them on the ceiling of the university's festival hall as planned. The ministry subsequently made plans to transfer the works to the state's newly established Moderne Galerie.

However, Klimt vehemently rejected these plans. He was displeased with the lack of respect, and instead suggested reneging on the commission and paying the fee he had already received for the paintings back to the ministry.

This was also picked up by the press, so that in 1905, for example, Klimt was quoted as saying: "I refuse any help from the state, I will do without it all." (Gustav Klimt, in an interview with Berta Zuckerlandl, entitled "The Klimt Affair," her article in the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung of April 12, 1905.)

In order to refund the ministry for the fee he had already received, he sold the paintings to a long-time patron, as well as friend and colleague, August Lederer, the Austrian industrialist, who already owned many of Klimt's paintings. Lederer purchased the "Philosophy" painting in 1905, and Klimt's colleague Koloman Moser acquired the two other Faculty Paintings, "Medicine" and "Jurisprudence," between 1910 and 1912.

The Moser family then sold both paintings on in 1919, which is how the "Medicine" painting found itself in the Austrian Gallery and "Jurisprudence" later came into the possession of August Lederer.

Tragically, not one of the three Faculty Paintings survived the historical developments that were to come. After 1938, the National Socialists (Nazis) stole both faculty paintings from the Lederer family. In 1944, together with the faculty painting from the Austrian Gallery, they brought them to Schloss Immendorf, which is located about 31 miles northwest of Vienna in Lower Austria.

Regrettably, Schloss Immendorf ended up in a military fighting zone and was burnt down on May 9, 1945. All three Faculty Paintings, along with other works by Klimt that had been part of the Lederer collection, were destroyed. Consequently, it is no longer possible to experience the Faculty Paintings in their full size and in full color. All that is left are black and white images of these monumental works.

The loss of Klimt's masterpieces also brought about a decisive phase in his artistic development as he came to terms with the loss. He reused motifs invented for the paintings in his other works from the same period and later in his career.

There are echoes in Adam and Eve (1917/18) and of course The Kiss (1908/9). These lost Faculty Paintings were perhaps Klimt's most significant contribution to Symbolist art.