Upon entering the exhibition "Decadence," visitors must make a decision of seemingly enormous consequence: whether to venture into "Satanic Hallucinations" or "Sullen, Debauched, Morose." Either way, you will enter a circular labyrinth within a constructed black box that contains paintings, drawings, graphics and sculptures, and eventually leads to two other main sections: "The Demon Love" and "Purgatory of Death." But don't despair, because in all four sections the selection of works is simply outstanding.

As an art movement, Decadence is hard to pin down. Indeed, many of the artists in the exhibit are not normally associated with this style, which was in its heyday at the turn of the 20th century. The works all relate, rather, to the chosen themes. And not a single artist seems out of place here, because all were either influenced by, or had an influence on, various aspects of Decadent art.

The "Sullen, Debauched, Morose" section contains plenty of stylized portraits and self-portraiture, while the artist's detachment from the world is best represented by works revealing debauched dreams and fantastical imaginings.

Karel Hlaváček's demonic drawings in this section are iconic images of the period, as are his self-portraits, including one of his own skull from the series "Bawdyhouse of the Soul." And we find out what was on František Kobliha's mind at night through his series of wood engravings called "Women of my Dreams." (Sex!) Similarly, Marquis von Bayros' White Peacock (1910) is an eruption of naked temptation and its aftermath. And photos from František Drtikol's crucifixion series from 1913-14, with a nude woman on the cross, are daring even today.

The "Sullen, Debauched, Morose," section leads into "The Demon Love" with such overlap that the division is nearly futile. This part of the show abounds with orgies and naked young women in Satan's amorous embrace.

August Bromse's nine aquatints from the series "The Girl and Death" are bleak and exquisite, while Jan Konůpek's Ophelia (1907) is a luscious image of the Shakespearean heroine with her head floating above the water. The surrounding landscape is a deliciously colorful paradise, and big-eyed fish swim around her begowned body, seemingly inviting her with them to the stream's muddy bottom.

There is a separate semicircular room dedicated to Salome, the archetypal anti-heroine for the Decadents. Another repeated motif from the Bible is the Temptation of St. Anthony.

Temptation, beauty and sensual eroticism go hand in hand with cruelty, pain and suffering without redemption in assorted images of grimacing, demented faces, as in The Crowd (1903) by František Loukota. In this work, the figures are at once curious spectators and lurking co-conspirators.

After all this, the "Satanic Hallucinations" section isn't as harrowing as one might expect. Dream imagery becomes more morbid, and black magic and vampirism abound. On the lighter, hallucinogenic side, Josef Vachal's Astral Plain (Spiritualist Soirée) and Elemental Plain (Plain of Passions & Instincts) from 1904-06 are a modernist head trip. And one can only imagine what Jaroslav Panuška was under the influence of when he painted Exorcists (1902), which portrays two figures praying on a dreary hill in the picturesque Czech-Moravian Highlands with a vortex of light on the horizon.

Following these wild visions, death is just around the corner. "Death as Purgatory" is the last main section, but it is intertwined with the many landscapes of "Satanic Hallucinations," almost in the form of a figure eight. This section includes the insane and the alien, and instead of imaginary visions of a hell underground, there are grotesque images of tragic life — hell on earth.

Richard Teschner's aquatints from 1914-16 of aliens and rodents, and naked Hindu goddesses floating in the air with babies and beasts, are the only comic relief. In terms of placement, Panuška's Spirit of the Dead Mother (1900) is a centerpiece: It is noticeable from down a long hallway, and from a distance it looks like it could be three crying ghostly faces in dreamy aqua-green. Up close, the painting is actually of a single thin green ghost, haggard and lonely, looking into a lighted home.