St Wolfgang Church Gustav Klimt Buy Art Prints Now
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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 14, 2023
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The painting of St Wolfgang Church showcases a beautiful white church positioned on Lake Attersee.

Klimt's father in law had helped the artist find a position through providing large binoculars to see the church.

Klimt had planted himself on the other side of the lake, starring out onto the grand church through his binoculars.

Klimt's detail oriented technique requires a multitude of colours, textures, and eye-catching patterns.

Gustav Klimt is a prominent artist within his contemporary, showcasing an array of styles and techniques.

The artist is most famous for his mosaic patterns and metallic colours produced within his gold phase in his elaborate paintings The Kiss, The Tree of Life, and Water Serpents. The artist has painted in an array of styles from realism, Art Nouveau, impressionism, and Byzantine mosaics.

The portrait of the church carries no lines of perspective, and is a fat perspective of the village. The viewer witnesses the white church, with an onion shaped dome to the left of the bell tower. The dome of the church acts as the focal point of the art piece, seizing the viewer's attention. The church's architecture incorporates arched columns and mosaic windows throughout the church. Green vines cover the side of the church, leading towards the teal blue roof.

Gustav Klimt had painted the landscape artwork based on a mosaic impressionist style. The patchwork of different patterns and colours is illustrated throughout the artwork as the artist uses circular motions to achieve this style. Klimt uses a sponge technique throughout St Wolfgang Church to reveal a different texture. The artist is well known for this technique through his landscape paintings as they prevail a different depth to the painting. The artist had continued to create these types of landscape paintings, with a similar flat surface as the work here showcases.

There are a few prominent figures throughout the work that add different characteristics within the painting. A English styled 19th century home is illustrated to the left of the canvas, with large windows and a creamy white exterior.

Rows of boats are placed near the shore, showing the viewer the lifestyle of the town. At the right, a mustard coloured building with a water garage is painted, below a similarly coloured house. An interesting part to notice within the painting is the tree located at the centre of the work. The artist decided to manifest a strong impressionist style within the work as he painted the trees merged as one rather than separate forms.

The green and blue mosaic styles showcased within the trees perfectly illustrate the artist's technique to creating the painting. The greenery above the village is based upon large hills that fold into one another. They are coloured in tree that again are merged together forming as one. The bright colours throughout St Wolfgang Church are a common feature of Klimt's impressionist work. The artist incorporated the bright colours into his work to showcase life and characteristics of nature.

Gustav Klimt's skilful artistry is unravelled as the painter reflects the life on the town against the water. The difficult task to showcase the mirrored impression of the setting can only be obtained through years of experience and knowledge. Klimt entirely showcases a blend of colour throughout the water while still displaying the detailed texture of the water.