Farmhouse in Upper Austria by Klimt: A Square Summer Landscape

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A summer landscape in Upper Austria

Gustav Klimt spent many summers on the Attersee, a lake in Upper Austria, with the family of his companion Emilie Flöge. There he painted landscapes, almost always on square canvases. This farmhouse, in the village of Buchberg, was painted in 1911 to 1912.

It belongs to the Belvedere in Vienna.

A screen of leaves

Dense dabs of green and blue leaves with yellow fruit — A screen of leaves.

The top two-thirds of the painting is a dense mass of leaves, painted in thousands of small dabs of green, blue and yellow, with a few yellow-green fruits. The effect is close to a tapestry or a mosaic.

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Farmhouse in Upper Austria, painted by hand

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A farmhouse half hidden

Grey-blue farmhouse with shuttered windows — A farmhouse half hidden.

The grey-blue wooden farmhouse appears behind the trees, with its shuttered windows in a neat row. It is flattened and seen straight on, almost like a pattern.

Gnarled mossy tree trunk beside sunflowers — A gnarled trunk frames the house.

At the right, a thick, gnarled trunk frames the house, its bark covered in moss.

A meadow of flowers

Meadow full of tiny pink, yellow and white flowers — A meadow of flowers.

The foreground is a meadow full of tiny flowers in pink, yellow, white and blue. Klimt used the same decorative approach as in his gold portraits, but with nature instead of gold.

Why square?

Klimt is said to have used a viewfinder, or even binoculars, to frame his landscapes. The square format and the cropped, close view remove the horizon and turn the scene into a flat, decorative surface.

Questions about Farmhouse in Upper Austria

Where was it painted?

At Buchberg on the Attersee, in Upper Austria.

Where is the original?

Belvedere, Vienna.

Why is it square?

Klimt painted almost all his landscapes on square canvases.

How large is it?

About 110 × 110 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Sources and image credit

Public-domain reproduction of Farmhouse in Upper Austria (1911 to 1912), via Wikimedia Commons (Belvedere). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.