Gustav Klimt · Lake Garda · 1913
Church in Cassone: Lake Garda and vertical framing
A square painting built like an ascent. The cypresses, the bell tower and the stacked facades transform an Italian village into touch architecture, without sky and almost without horizon.
Direct response
Why talk about vertical framing if the canvas is square?
Church in Cassone is well painted on a square of approximately 110 centimeters on each side. The word "vertical" therefore describes less the material shape of the canvas than the way in which the gaze passes through it. The cypresses rise like columns, the bell tower regains its momentum and the houses are spread out from the water's edge towards the top of the village.
Klimt almost completely removes the sky. It also reduces the visible surface of the lake to a low band. The landscape does not open towards a distant horizon line: it stands before us. The shore seems close, compact, almost wall-mounted.
This compression distinguishes the work from a panoramic tourist view. The painter does not seek to explain Cassone's geography. He selects a fragment, brings his plans together and transforms the alternation of facades, roofs and trees into a continuous pattern.
A water base
The lake occupies the bottom of the image and functions as a threshold, not a vast panoramic subject.
Tiered houses
The light facades overlap in short shots and build a slope without academic depth.
Cypress columns
Their dark silhouettes cut through the buildings and impose several very clear climb lines.
A summit without sky
The framing trims the atmospheric opening and closes the composition on vegetation and architecture.
Guided reading
The village becomes a plant facade
The houses are not detailed as self-contained buildings. Their white, gray, ocher and pink walls appear in blocks. Some angles are readable, others disappear behind a trunk or a leafy mass. This alternation prevents the eye from easily reconstructing the streets.
The bell tower of the Church of Saints Benigno and Caro serves as a landmark, but it is not isolated. Klimt integrates it into a set of competing verticals. Cypresses have almost the same authority as sacred architecture.
Color doesn't just fill in contours. Small juxtaposed touches make surfaces vibrate, especially in vegetation. Lighter walls offer breaks, then trees restart movement.
Cassone Today
Actual location reveals what Klimt chose to erase
Cassone is a village in the municipality of Malcesine, on the eastern shore of Lake Garda. The photographs show a more open and horizontal space than the painting.
The village on its site
The shore, the reliefs and the extent of the lake place the houses in a broad geography. Klimt retains a much tighter core.
The Church of Saints Benigno and Caro
The facade and the bell tower are clearly readable on site. In the painting, the vegetation fragments them and absorbs them in the general rhythm.
Distance and optical instrument
Painting Cassone from Val di Sogno
Research published during the Sotheby's sale places the viewpoint near Villa Gruber, on the Val di Sogno peninsula, south of Malcesine. Klimt therefore observed Cassone from a distance, on the other side of a portion of the lake.
As at the Attersee, he would have used an optical aid, probably a telescope magnifying ten times. This instrument does not automatically produce a painting, but it favors very tight cutting: the peripheral field disappears, distant planes come closer and architectural details become clear signs.
The result is not an enlarged photograph. Klimt reorganizes the relationships between volumes, places the cypresses in front of angles useful for understanding and favors the continuity of the surface.
The Italian Summer of 1913
Three paintings around Lake Garda
Klimt stayed in the region with Emilie Flöge and her family between late July and mid-September 1913. The trip produced three landscapes with very different organizations.
Compact village, vertical cypresses, reduced water strip and architecture maintained in a square surface.
An urban view also observed from a distance. The original was destroyed during World War II.
A garden where flowers and foliage replace facades as the main decorative network.
Malcesine on Lake Garda
The houses also rise into the square, but the urban volumes are tighter and the silhouette of the town dominates the vegetation more.
See reproduction →
Italian horticultural landscape
The geometry of the houses gives way to a floral profusion. The surface remains dense, but the color disperses into small, freer units.
See reproduction →Origin and market
A work preserved, moved and then sold in 2010
The painting was acquired directly from Klimt by Viktor and Paula Zuckerkandl before 1914. It then passed to Amalie Redlich, sister of Viktor. Its history in the 20th century became complex: after the Anschluss and the persecution of the family, the work left this collection and circulated on the market.
The Sotheby's sale of February 2010 comes after an agreement between Amalie Redlich's heir and the family of the owner who then owned the painting. This solution makes it possible to publicly present the painting with a clarified provenance.
Auctioned for almost £27 million with fees, Church in Cassone confirms the special place of Klimt's landscapes. Their rarity, their square format and their decorative concentration distinguish them from his golden portraits without making them secondary.
Extend the comparison
Three landscapes by Klimt to understand his vocabulary
These works from the shop allow you to compare pure water, the repetition of trunks and filtered light with the tight village of Cassone.
Reference sources
To verify the work and its context
Frequently asked questions
Church in Cassone in eight responses
When did Klimt paint Church in Cassone?
The painting dates from 1913, during the stay of Gustav Klimt, Emilie Flöge and her family on Lake Garda.
Is the table vertical?
No. The original measures approximately 110 × 110 cm and therefore adopts a square format. The vertical printing comes from the cypresses, the bell tower and the layout of the houses.
Which church is represented?
This is the Church of Saints Benigno and Caro in Cassone di Malcesine, on the eastern shore of Lake Garda.
Where was Klimt looking at Cassone from?
The viewpoint is located near Villa Gruber, on the Val di Sogno peninsula, south of Malcesine.
Did Klimt use a telescope?
Research cited by Sotheby's indicates that he probably used an optical aid magnifying about ten times, as he did for some landscapes in the Attersee.
Where is Church in Cassone today?
The work belongs to a private collection. It was presented on the market at Sotheby's in London in 2010.
How many paintings did Klimt paint at Lake Garda?
Three paintings are associated with the stay of 1913: Church in Cassone, Malcesine on Lake Garda and Italian horticultural landscape.
Can we purchase a reproduction of the painting?
Yes. Alpha Reproduction offers a hand-painted reproduction of Church in Cassone, accessible directly from the buttons of this article.
Find the vertical rhythm of Cassone at home
The square format maintains the balance of the original, while the cypresses and the bell tower give height to the composition without imposing a portrait painting.
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