Gustav Klimt - On Lake Attersee Notebook

On Lake Attersee, painted in 1900 in oil on canvas by Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt. Created during Klimt's first summer stay at the Attersee, the square canvas gives almost the entire composition to the lake's shifting surface, without a conventional foreground to anchor the view. Small strokes of blue, green, violet and white turn ripples and reflections into a nearly abstract pattern. The high horizon and close crop immerse the viewer directly in water and light. Klimt had already begun using the square format for landscapes around 1899, and this early Attersee picture shows how quickly he was flattening natural space into decorative colour.