In 1902, Klimt painted the Beethoven Frieze for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition, which was intended to be a celebration of the composer and featured a monumental polychrome sculpture by Max Klinger. Meant for the exhibition only, the frieze was painted directly on the walls with light materials. After the exhibition the painting was preserved, although it did not go on display again until 1986. The Beethoven Frieze is now on permanent display in the Vienna Secession Building. The artist association planned an exhibition as a hommage to the great composer Ludwig van Beethoven, whose music suited the secessionists idea of the 'gesamtkunstwerk'. Gustav Klimt was invited to contribute and created a monumetal wall cycle, the famous Beethoven Frieze, which you can admire all year round at the Secession.

Drawing his inspiration from Beethovens 9th symphony, a total experience was planned for the original exhibition with the 4th movement of the symphony being played. Because of the frieze's fame and popularity, it was made the main motif of one of the most famous collectors' coins: the Austrian 100 euro The Secession Coin, minted on November 10, 2004. The reverse side features a small portion of the frieze. The extract from the painting features three figures: a knight in armor representing “Armored Strength”, one woman in the background symbolizing “Ambition” holding up a wreath of victory and a second woman representing “Sympathy” with lowered head and clasped hands.

On the final wall the yearning for happiness finds appeasement in Poetry (the figure with lyre). An empty segment in the frieze, where a wall opening revealed a view of Klinger's statue in the 1902 exhibition, is followed by The Arts: five female figures representing the 'ideal realm', a place of 'pure joy, pure happiness, pure love’. The frieze concludes with a choir of angels 'singing in paradise' and the powerful image of a kissing couple. The reconstruction presented in the exhibition was created using the same techniques Klimt himself used, discovered as the original underwent restoration.

Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze: Lasciviousness, Wantonness, Intemperance. Lasciviousness, wantonness, intemperance (the group of three women to the right of Typhoeus. Intemperance wears a conspicuously ornamented blue skirt with applications of mother-of-pearl, bronze rings, etc.). Gnawing grief (the woman cowering on the right in the picture). The yearnings and desires of humankind fly past them.