Nietzsche’s declaration in the late 19th century that god was dead was something of a starting gun for all kinds of alternative belief systems to emerge, as theosophists, pacifists, socialists and Secessionists sought to create new, more haunting forms of art, literature and living. The Leopold Museum in Vienna is putting the diverse artistic manifestations of these new strands of thought in the spotlight with an exhibition that includes examples of Kandinsky’s pioneering mode of abstraction; a melancholic twilit scene by Edvard Munch from c. 1892; a bracing portrait of a medium from 1887 by Albert von Keller; as well as portraits by artists such as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer and Arnold Schönberg (the composer was also an adept painter), who viewed their sitters as mystic presences (4 September–18 January 2026).
Find out more from the Leopold Museum’s website
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