Gustav Klimt's Enchanted Tree Paintings Reveal His Waldschrat Side

Gustav Klimt, the Vienna Secession master known for golden, erotic works, also produced a lesser-known series of tree paintings between 1901 and 1904, reflecting his Waldschrat persona—a solitary woods-dweller. During summer retreats in Litzlberg on Lake Attersee, Klimt began his days at 6 a.m. with long forest walks, resulting in calm autumnal scenes like Birch Forest (1903, Paul G. Allen Family Collection) and Beech Forest I (1903, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden). He frequently painted birch forests, a motif symbolizing spring and youth, possibly nostalgic for his own youth as he approached 40. Klimt often used square canvases, a dominant decorative motif of the Vienna Secession, and applied dabs of paint for leaves, flowers, or fruit, creating a flat flickering field of color that evokes Post-Impressionism and Byzantine mosaics. He continued adding dabs to Pear Tree (1903, Harvard Art Museums) even after giving it to muse Emilie Flöge. His tree scenes never show the sky, only hinted through tiny gaps, a green horror vacui stemming from his interest in ornament and rhythm. At this point, Klimt had moved away from his gold phase, influenced by Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, but added depth with vertical brush strokes, avoiding the stiffness of Signac and Seurat. In The Park (c. 1910, MoMA), he offers a fragmentary view of Schlosspark of Kammer on Lake Attersee, highly abstract with tree trunks hinting at a green mosaic of crowns above a sea of dabs.