At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna became an epicenter for new thought, increasingly running counter to the prevalent conservatism symbolized by the neo-classical facades of the buildings in the city's Ringstrasse. During the time of the modernist movement led by Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser, among others, a multidisciplinary environment emerged in which music, writing, and intellectual thought flourished, bringing different arts together in a "Gesamtkunstwerk" a total work of art.
Covering all artistic fields, from painting to photography, the Wiener Werkstatte and decorative arts, fashion and architecture of fin-de-siecle Vienna and including biographies for featured artists, Vienna 1900 Complete is an unprecedented compilation of richly colored images curated and authored in a single volume by three leading scholars of the period.