Gustav Klimt Italian Garden Landscape Vase

Gustav Klimt (Vienna, 1862-1918) was a symbolist painter, best known for his figural works like The Kiss.

Less well known are Klimt’s extraordinary landscapes. Painted almost exclusively on square canvases, his stylized approach rendered nature as a series of patterns. In summer, he travelled to the Austrian and Italian countryside where he would experiment with color and style of his plein-air paintings. Often, he brought the canvases back to his studio to add final touches.

Painted in 1913, a white house with a tiled roof is almost obscured by foliage in the background of his Italian Garden Landscape. The perspective becomes uncertain as a profusion of flowers crowd into the foreground. In Klimt’s vision, nature’s harmonies begin to blend with decorative abstraction.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Italian Garden Landscape
1913
Oil on canvas