Gustav Klimt was also finishing up a long-standing commission of three ceiling paintings for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna: Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence . Once completed, their sensual depiction of undressed female forms prompted an outcry, and they were not allowed to be displayed in the Great Hall after all. He was accused of turning traditional allegory and symbolism into the "pornographic."

The integration of all of the arts (music, poetry, dance, and other visual elements) into a single medium of dramatic expression. This term was used by Richard Wagner to describe the vision of his later operas (in the late Romantic era), where the integration of these elements were critical to his vision of a unified and complete art-form. Wagner was looking to return to the practices that were thought to be used in ancient Greece to perfectly combine the arts.

Gesamtkunstwerk, meaning an artistic creation of music, drama, spectacle, dance, etc.

In 1902, Klimt painted the Beethoven Frieze for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition, which was intended to be a celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven|the composer and featured a monumental polychrome sculpture by Max Klinger.

In 1896, Gustav Klimt and a number of other artists quit the conservative Künstlerhaus and founded a new art association called the Secession. The building of the same name was completed in 1898.