Gustav Klimt,
Die Medizin (Kompositionsentwurf) (1897–98).
“All art is erotic,” Klimt once mused. That same philosophy occasionally got the artist into hot water. Klimt, who was notorious for his amorous proclivities (he is believed to have fathered some 14 children), emerged as a unique voice during a period of intense modernization in Vienna. At the dawn of the 20th century, long-standing Catholic traditions were upended by radical philosophies and the emerging field of psychology, including the writings of the city’s own Sigmund Freud.
Meanwhile, Vienna Secession artists like Klimt (and his admirers Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka) sought to fuse visions of the sacred and the profane, abandoning the formalities of academic styles, and embracing themes of desire, sexuality, and psychology, while freely incorporating elements of design.