Beethoven Frieze (plate 1, left wall): Yearning for Happiness

In April 1902 the Vienna Secession opened an exhibition built around Beethoven, and the first side hall visitors walked into was Klimt's. The frieze opens on this panel. A narrow band of figures runs along the very top of the wall, long pale bodies stretched out flat as if swimming through air, arms reaching ahead, eyes closed. Below them Klimt left the mortar bare, a surface more than two metres high marked only by cracks. In his programme these floating women stand for the yearning for happiness. There is little gold here, a few patches on their hair set with little dark dots. Since 1986 the frieze has been shown in a basement room of the Secession built for it, on permanent loan from the Belvedere, which owns it.