Gustav Klimt’s paintings in the festivities hall

A storm of indignation

There has rarely been another event in Austrian art history to create such a storm as the design for the ceiling of the festivities hall in the University of Vienna.

2 artists, Franz Matsch and Gustav Klimt, are commissioned in 1894 but work is never completed. Apart from Matsch’s central painting The Triumph of Light over Darkness only reproductions of the planned works can be seen on the ceiling of the festivities hall.

What happened? While Matsch adheres to the usual form of the time, Klimt reworks his several times and strays ever further from the style of his colleague and not least from the sketches he originally submits.

He makes a radical change from Historicism to the Austrian Jugendstil that will later make him famous throughout the world. But when Klimt’s paintings are presented to the public for the first time at the beginning of the 20th century, it causes a veritable scandal. More than 80 professors from the University of Vienna speak out against the works being installed in the festivities hall.

The result: Gustav Klimt gives up the commission and the masterpieces conceived for the University of Vienna disappear into private collections.