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Is the woman unconscious? Could the man’s embrace be violent? A new film invites us to challenge our preconceptions about the gilded masterpiece
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 Kl...