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Klimt found a rich source of inspiration in the garden of his Vienna studio but for the many landscapes that he painted he chose mostly motives from the Upper Austria area around LakeAttersee. During his years at Feldmühlgasse, he spent some of the summer months at Attersee. Emilie Flöge and her family accompanied Klimt when looking out for suitable image locations. To sharpen his view and focus in the best possible way, Klimt used a kind of "window" viewer. He cut a little window out of carton and held it with his arm extended, looking into the landscape. The "window carton" was square, as are many of his landscape paintings - an unusual format compared with the work of his contemporaries.

The square format is characteristic of Klimt, as is the perspective in which he paints. Just like in medieval paintings, the landscape is seen tipped-up or folded open. It is not the depth into which the eye of the onlooker peers and wonders, it is the flat area of ornamental structure. Often the horizon is merely a thin strip right on top at the edge of the painting. Houses and trees have distinct limiting lines - and yet everything seems to melt into or against each other.

Circles, spots, haze and mirror images take over and cover built-up structure. Tree and house are inseparable. Interspersed with poplar tree or a church spire, roofs and window frames, these compositions present a looseness of painting and, at the same time, are geometrical and quite structured. Around twenty landscapes painted at Feldmühlgasse have survived.

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