> but these guys weren't even in the same generation Not sure what you meant by that. Besides 130 years isn't a long time especially when it concerns a period

> but these guys weren't even in the same generation Not sure what you meant by that. Besides 130 years isn't a long time especially when it concerns a period of time when everything gets "democratised" and your possible audience is growing through out the century. With 7 billion people today even the most obscure artisans find recognition and everyone who read The New Yorker twice in their life is an expert on art and all things cultural. The works of masters prior to the era of Klimt survived for different reasons. I argue that if there's a reason these two still get recognition it's because they simply happened to be at the beginning of the current era of modernism as well as growing industry of art dealing business which, thanks to the size of the audience and mass media can now, with good enough marketing, gain recognition to even the most ridiculous of artworks and profit from subsequently selling it to those desperate for signalling taste and virtues. To sell a master is not a good business, you can't buy them cheap and sell high and they're limited in supply. Art has been replaced by marketing story telling. So I wouldn't claim 130 years (or rather barely 100) validate the quality of work in the case of Klimt and Schiele. The most beautiful example of the ridiculousness of the entire modern art business is Frida. In order to sell art expensively and please the need of virtue and taste signalling you first need to gain recognition for the artist among the masses who will provide the admiration to the buyer of art. And thus you have people who will never afford to buy Frida wearing Frida tattoos and sharing social media posts about her "art" and subsequently people (usually newly rich) paying millions for these works just to buy the brand of "exquisite taste". for themselves Today it's Frida, decades ago it was Schiele and Klimt and they seem to be the golden goose that keeps giving.