Hietzinger Friedhof

Right here are the two artistic giants who shaped modern art, buried in this quiet cemetery behind Schönbrunn Palace. Not the massive Central Cemetery where tour buses arrive. This one.

Walk into Group 5. Gustav Klimt lies under a plain square slab. The man who painted The Kiss in gold leaf, whose canvases exploded with sensuality and ornament, chose the simplest grave imaginable. Just his name carved like his signature. Nothing else.

Now walk 20 paces to Group 13. Otto Wagner designed himself a monument before he died. Six red granite columns. Wrought iron scrollwork overhead. A grand family tomb with the inscription "the son for the best mother" in Latin. The architect who built modernist Vienna made sure everyone would see his grave.

Both men died in 1918, within months of each other. Both revolutionized their fields. Klimt co-founded the Secession movement, Wagner shaped an entire city. Both chose to be buried here, steps from each other.

The contrast says everything. Klimt, whose art overflowed with decoration, wanted nothing. Wagner, who preached that form follows function, built himself a shrine. Two geniuses. Two opposite ways of being remembered.