“Beech Grove I”
Here is a perfect piece to welcome autumn…
“Beech Grove I” is an oil on canvas painting by the artist, Gustav Klimt, from 1902. Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter who was a prominent member of the Vienna Secessionist Movement. Though mostly praised for his figurative pieces, Klimt created many beautiful landscapes including this one here.
Starting in 1898, Klimt accompanied his partner, Emilie Flöge, and her family on their annual vacations to Lake Attersee in northern Austria. He would spend months waking up early each day to explore the natural surroundings. It is here where he painted most of his well-known landscapes, including this one. These landscapes exhibit much of the same mosaic and patterning as well as the flattened space seen in his figurative pieces.
Though titled “Beech Grove I”, the trees in the painting most likely consist of birch and aspen trees. A grove of trees mentioned in his letters was used as a setting for years by Klimt. He painted plein air, in an impressionism style, using a similar lighter color palette. It is an autumn scene. The sunlight filters in, dappling the trees with bright spots of color. The horizon is high, which allowed him space to speckle browns, oranges, blues, and other colors as fallen leaves along the forest floor. To help with the scope of the view, Klimt used a piece of cardboard with a square cut from the center as a viewfinder. He elongated the trees, using the long and skinny repeating trunk patterns to give the viewer a sense of depth. What he creates is an homage to the forest. Turning the ordinary into an evocative landscape.
Other works by Gustav Klimt in this homage series to trees includes “Beech Forest”, “Beech Tree”, “Birch Forest”, “Fir Forest I”, and “Fir Forest II”.
“Beech Grove I” is currently on display at the Galerie Neue Meister (New Masters Gallery), part of the Dresden State Art Collections in Dresden, Germany.
For more on Gustav Klimt, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
