Beethoven Frieze (plate 7, right wall): Yearning for happiness is assuaged in poetry

The seventh plate of the Beethoven Frieze's right wall is the penultimate image in the sequence leading to the culminating embrace of the eighth plate. This section of the frieze introduces the angels and decorative flourishes that will surround the famous final couple, building toward the resolution of the entire narrative programme. Klimt's treatment of the right wall as the space of artistic and spiritual fulfillment — where the aspirations of the left wall and the interruption of the centre wall find their answer — gives each of its plates a redemptive quality absent from the earlier sections.

The seventh plate introduces the golden, celebratory visual language that will reach its fullest development in the final plate, with angelic figures and rich ornamental grounds replacing the disturbing imagery of the centre wall. The decorative abundance is itself a form of redemptive visual pleasure.