Death and Life

Gustav Klimt

Oil on canvas

Leopold Museum

Death and Life (Tod und Leben) is a large-scale allegorical oil on canvas by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, begun in 1910 and substantially reworked in 1915. The composition is divided into two contrasting groups: on the left, a solitary skeletal figure of Death, shrouded in a dark robe adorned with crosses and clutching a club, gazes toward the right with a menacing expression; on the right, a tightly interwoven cluster of nude human figures—spanning infancy, adulthood, and old age—rests in a dreamlike embrace surrounded by colorful ornamental patterns and flowers. Klimt replaced the painting's original gold-leaf background with a subdued gray during his 1915 revision, shifting its mood from Byzantine opulence toward somber contemplation. A foundational figure of the Vienna Secession and Symbolist Art Nouveau, Klimt produced in this work one of the most resonant meditations on mortality and the continuity of life in early twentieth-century European painting.