Vienna in 1900 was home to a thriving arts and intellectual culture that included many important thinkers and a substantial group of prominent artists, includingA the founderA of theA Secession Gustav Klimt.A A common thread throughout music and the fine and decorative arts was the redefining of individual identity for the modern age, as the search for a specifically modern Viennese sense of self prompted a dialogue about ornamentation and inner truth in the arts of the age. A Edited by distinguished curators Christian Witt-DA¶rring and Jill Lloyd, Birth of the Modern explores new attitudesa??particularly those toward gender and sexualitya??that surfaced in Viennese culture in the early twentieth century. The book features essays by, among others, Philipp Blom on the question of identity, Claude Cernuschi on psychological portraiture, Alessandra Comini on music in imperial Vienna, and Jean Clair on the a??joyous apocalypse,a?? alongside images of works by fine and decorative...