The original proposal for the theme of the painting was "The Victory of Light over Darkness", but what Klimt presented instead was a dreamlike mass of humanity, referring neither to optimism nor rationalism, but to a "viscous void".

At the bottom of the painting Hygieia stood with the Aesculapian snake around her arm and the cup of Lethe in her hand, turning her back to mankind.

Klimt conveyed an ambiguous unity of life and death, with nothing to celebrate the role of medicine or the science of healing.

[7] Jurisprudence, too, is laden with anxiety: a condemned man is depicted surrounded by three female furies and a sea monster, while in the background, the three goddesses of Truth, Justice, and Law look on.

Eighty-seven faculty members protested against the murals,[9] and in 1901 a public prosecutor was called in and the issue even reached the Parliament of Austria, the first time that a cultural debate had ever been raised there, but in the end no action was taken.

[13] The paintings were requested for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, but the ministry declined, nervous of what the reaction might be.

On 11 November 1903, the artistic commission of the ministry of education examined the projects for the panels of the University's Great Hall.

[15] Klimt repaid his advance of 30,000 crowns with the support of August Lederer, one of his major patrons, who in return received Philosophy.

In May 1945, the paintings are believed to have been destroyed as retreating German SS forces set fire to the castle to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

However, while the castle was gutted, there is no proof that the paintings were destroyed, as the art historian Tina Marie Storkovich found out.