1898 -1916 · Viennese landscape and Attersee

Klimt transforms gardens, orchards and banks of the Attersee into dense areas where each flower becomes a unit of color.

Gustav Klimt devotes an essential part of his summers to landscape, mainly around the Attersee in Upper Austria. Far from portrait commissions and large Viennese settings, he works outdoors while constructing highly meditated images. Its often square formats reduce the horizon and bring the vegetation closer to the viewer. In gardens and orchards, leaves, flowers and fruits add up like the tesserae of a mosaic; the trunk or the house is enough to stabilize this profusion. Sunflowers acquire an almost human presence, while apple and rose bushes dissolve the depth in a carpet of touches. This decorative density connects them landscapes to his symbolist works without imposing a narrative on them. Klimt thus reveals the garden as a complete organism, made of rhythm, growth and color. The "Gardens and Flowers of Gustav Klimt" selection notably compares Farm Garden with Sunflowers and The Apple Tree II. His reading favors composition.

At Klimt, the garden fills the pictorial square like a living mosaic where no detail is secondary.