Schloss Kammer on Attersee III, 1909 by Gustav Klimt

Once more Klimt plays with a favorite holiday image, the castle, Schloss Kammer on the fashionable Austrian spa lake, Attersee. Like the previous picture the castle is studied from the water to create a vibrant grainy work with murky yellow-green reflections.

In the early days Klimt rowed out onto the water to paint but in later years he was one of the first to own a sleek motor-boat, which caused a local stir. He painted directly onto the canvas, enjoying the freedom this allowed from his studio work, and often focused on the chosen scene by peering through opera glasses. This work's particularly fine fleeting sensation actually suggests the boat's transit along the front of the castle's walls, as though we can only glimpse the magnificent house between the trees as the boat glides through the shimmering water, superbly handled in the picture's foreground. The introduction of yellow mottling acts as a dominant counterpoise to his usual immense palette of greens, now dextrously handled after years of research in landscape and studio work. The work is reminiscent of coloring and brushwork of Van Gogh's paintings..