Love and death in Vienna

Nigel Jones | The Critic | 21st May 2020

A story that will be familiar to some but is nicely told. By 1900, Hapsburg Vienna could sense its salad days were ending. Klimt and Schiele captured this zeitgeist perfectly in “nervy” works that explored “the marriage between love and death”. A young Hitler lived locally, fruitlessly seeking a career in art. Things turned out badly – WW1, loss of empire, the Spanish flu pandemic and other doors opening for Hitler.