The Music

The Music (1895) was painted as an overmantel decoration for the music room of Nikolaus Dumba's Vienna palace, alongside the later Schubert at the Piano II (1899). Klimt's first treatment of the music theme, it shows a profile figure with a lyre and sphinx-like forms at the sides — a synthesis of Greek mythological attributes with the Symbolist atmosphere then pervading Viennese cultural life. The sphinx references Fernand Khnopff, whose work had been shown in Vienna and was deeply admired by Klimt and the future Secessionists. By 1895 Klimt was moving decisively toward a Symbolist visual language: flattened space, enigmatic figures, symbolic attributes replacing narrative action. The Bavarian State Painting Collections' holding of this work reflects the dispersal of major Klimt canvases into German museum collections over the twentieth century, particularly through purchases and bequests in the decades before and after the First World War.

The composition combines a central profile figure rendered with fluid, careful line against a flattened background from which sphinx forms emerge. The palette is deliberately restrained — greys and golds — to create a monumental, timeless atmosphere suited to the decorative architectural setting. Klimt's use of profile follows the conventions of ancient Greek vase painting, a source he was actively studying.