Attersee
The lake transformed into a surface of color: almost no more sky, almost no horizon, only a square of turquoise water crossed by small waves.
A landscape that borders on abstraction
Attersee, also titled On the banks of the Attersee or On Lake Attersee, is painted by Gustav Klimt during his first regular stay at the lake, in the summer of 1900.
The picture is radical because it refuses the expected landmarks of the landscape. The sky has disappeared. The horizon line is almost absent. The mountain mass, houses and boats play no role. A tiny dark border of the island of Litzlberg appears only in the upper right corner.
Everything else belongs to water. But this water is not a smooth mirror: it is constructed by a multitude of gray, green, blue and turquoise touches. Klimt transforms the expanse of the lake into an optical field, close to a textile or mosaic.
How Klimt flattens the lake
The effect does not come from vagueness or lack of work. On the contrary, it results from very precise decisions which neutralize traditional space.
Remove the sky
Without a sky, the viewer can no longer clearly measure distance or compare water to an atmosphere.
Raise the horizon
The bank is pushed to the top, as if the image were tilting towards the viewer.
Locking the expanse
The square format stabilizes the composition and gives the water the density of a decorative panel.
Multiply the keys
Waves become continuous writing rather than a succession of distinct objects.
Turquoise, gray, green: water without a center
The gaze encounters neither main character nor dominant motif. It circulates on colored skin. However, cold tones are never uniform: turquoise lightens, gray cools certain areas, duller greens give weight to the waves.
The little touches do not describe each undulation. They produce a global vibration. Up close, the lake fragments into marks; from a distance, these marks come together in moving depth.
In the upper right corner, the Litzlberg trees serve as punctuation. This dark mass is enough to remind us that we are looking at a real place. Without it, the painting could almost be received as a pure colored field.
What Klimt takes away
Facing the current lake, the painter's choice becomes obvious: he is not looking for the panorama.
The real view offers mountains, sky, banks, variations in depth and vast distances. Klimt tightens this space until almost anything that could measure it disappears.
So he doesn't just copy the turquoise color of the lake. He constructs a new experience: that of an expanse observed so intensely that it ends up occupying the entire visual field.
The landscape is no longer in front of us: it rises to the surface of the painting.
From pure water to absorbed architectures
The landscapes of Attersee do not repeat a single formula. Klimt moves from the almost abstract surface to castles, parks, ponds, farms and villages, but retains squareness and flattening.
Kammer Castle in Attersee III
The light facade and its reflection form an almost symmetrical mass. The architecture loses its volume and becomes a stack of luminous rectangles.
Kammer Castle Pond
The green reflection responds to the curtain of trees. Water and vegetation form two contiguous textures rather than a deep space.
Park at Kammer Castle
The foliage occupies almost the entire square. The lake only appears in fragments between the trunks.
Avenue in the park
The path suggests a leak, but the density of the trees slows the depth and brings the gaze back to the surface.
Country house on the lake
The building is not isolated like an architectural portrait. It is absorbed by the foliage, flowers and colorful plans of the garden.
Unterach Church
Houses, bell tower and relief fit together without breathing. The distance becomes a tapestry of facades and greenery.
Undergrowth in Unterach
The vertical trunks and the spotted slope transform the forest into a tight network, almost without opening towards the sky.
Find Kammer, Villa Paulick and local memory
Comparing places and paintings shows what Klimt keeps, brings together or eliminates. Photographs are geographical landmarks, not attempts to accurately reconstruct one's point of view.
Schloss Kammer Today
The facade, the wings and the shore explain the painter's raw material. In the canvases, distances contract and reflections redouble the architecture.
Villa Paulick
The villa belongs to the social geography of the summers of Klimt and Flöge: vacation, friendships and long observations of the landscape.
Klimt and Emilie Flöge at the lake
Photography reminds us that the Attersee is also a rhythm of life: walks, swimming, boating, sociability and summer work.
The Schörfling website
The building documents the former museum activity dedicated to Klimt. The artist's journey and the Klimt garden remain public landmarks in the region.
1900 -1916: the lake as a summer workshop
Klimt returns to the region almost every summer, with Emilie Flöge and her circle. His places of stay move, and the motives change with them.
Litzlberg
Installed near the north shore, Klimt painted the first large areas of water, the island and the trees. Attersee born in the first summer.
Kammer
From Villa Oleander and surrounding areas, he explores Schloss Kammer, the park, the pond, the paths and the close-up views of the vegetation.
Weissenbach and Unterach
The last countryside favors farms, villages, churches, wooded slopes and increasingly tight compositions.
Same lake, multiple ways to flatten
| Work | Mark preserved | Depth | Dominant effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attersee, 1900 | Litzlberg Fragment | Almost deleted | Turquoise waterfield bordering on abstraction |
| Kammer III Castle | Facade and reflection | Compressed by symmetry | Architecture transformed into a light grid |
| Kammer Pond | Shore and foliage | Shared into two strips | Dialogue between green mirror and green wall |
| Kammer Park | Trunks and breakthroughs of the lake | Blocked | Leaf mosaic and wrapping feel |
| Unterach | Houses, church, slope | Stacked plans | Village treated as colorful tapestry |
The stages of the Attersee landscape
The square before the lake
One morning by the pond, painted in Golling, prepares the square format of the landscapes to come.
First regular stay
Klimt arrives in Litzlberg and paints Attersee, painting almost entirely made of water.
Reception in Vienna
The work was shown at the Secession and struck critics with its radical framing.
Island and poplar
Klimt develops his research on reflections, trees and the colored density of the landscape.
Kammer cycle
Castle, park, pond and avenue become the motifs of a series of experiments on plans and textures.
Last summers
Around Weissenbach and Unterach, houses and forests are narrowed into almost textile surfaces.
Compose a set around the Attersee
These eight works are actually available in the store. The square makes it easy to combine them into a diptych or landscape wall.
Attersee
The lake reduces to a turquoise vibration.
Kammer III Castle
A clear facade redoubled by water.
Kammer Pond
Water and foliage in two textures.
Kammer Park
The lake seen behind the foliage.
Schloss Kammer Avenue
A perspective retained by the trunks.
Country house
Architecture absorbed by vegetation.
Unterach Church
Facades, bell tower and hill close together.
Undergrowth in Unterach
A slope transformed into a network of keys.
Klimt, nature and the Attersee
Understanding Klimt's Attersee
When did Gustav Klimt paint Attersee ?
The painting dates from 1900 and corresponds to Klimt's first regular stay at Lake Attersee.
Where's the painting today?
Attersee belongs to the Leopold Museum in Vienna, where it is presented among the major works of Klimt and Viennese modernity.
Why is the painting almost abstract?
Klimt removes the sky, almost completely raises the horizon and fills the square with small touches of water. The subject remains identifiable, but the surface and color become priorities.
What do we see in the upper right corner?
A small dark portion of the tree-lined bank of Litzlberg. This fragment is the main geographical landmark of the painting.
Why does Klimt use square format often?
The square stabilizes its landscapes and reduces the panoramic effect. It promotes mass balance, key repetition and close reading of the decorative panel.
Did Klimt paint only the lake at the Attersee?
No. He also painted islands, poplars, gardens, Schloss Kammer, ponds, avenues, farms, villages and undergrowth around the lake.
Can we visit the places from Klimt to Attersee?
The region retains a public artist's trail and the Klimt Garden in Schörfling. Conditions of access to private buildings and local activities must be checked with tourist organizations before the visit.
Museums, archives and photographic credits
On Lake Attersee, 1900
Sheet of the work, dimensions, provenance and analysis of the framing.
Leopold MuseumGustav Klimt, Attersee
Presentation of the painting as a landscape bordering on abstraction.
Gustav Klimt DatabaseAttersee
Chronology of stays, residences and reasons for the region.
Gustav Klimt DatabaseThe landscapes of Kammer
Analysis of the castle, park, pond and colorful plans.
Klimt FoundationSummer Sojourns on the Attersee
Landmarks on Litzlberg, Kammer, Weissenbach and the summers of 1900 -1916.
Klimt FoundationCurrent traces at the lake
Information on the artist's journey, the garden and museum memory.
Wikimedia CommonsAttersee from Schörfling
Source and license of actual photography of the lake.
Wikimedia CommonsSchloss Kammer
Source and license of current photography of the castle.
Wikimedia CommonsVilla Paulick
Free photographs of the place associated with Klimt's stays.
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