Beethoven Frieze (plate 6, center wall): The Hostile Powers

The sixth plate of the Beethoven Frieze's centre wall depicts the hostile powers that oppose humanity's yearning for happiness — a central section of Klimt's visual programme based on Wagner's interpretation of the Ninth Symphony. The centre wall contains the frieze's most disturbing imagery: the giant Typhon, his daughters the three Gorgons representing disease, madness, and death, and the symbolic figures of licentiousness and excess. Klimt's treatment of these hostile forces was the most controversial aspect of the entire project, its explicit sexuality and dark allegorical content drawing sharp criticism and intense admiration in equal measure.

The hostile powers section employs a deliberately unsettling combination of naturalistic female nudes and grotesque monsters against a background of writhing serpents and ornamental gold. Klimt's skill at making the beautiful and the threatening coexist in a single composition reaches its peak in these central wall panels.