After the Rain

In the years just before 1900, Klimt discovered the autonomous landscape as a motif. His regular summer retreats in the countryside served as an important source of inspiration. These were always spent in the company of the Flöge family. Klimt's first shared summer stay with the Flöge family was in 1898 in Sankt Agatha on the Hallstättersee.
The fruit trees are staggered one behind the other, and the slightly rising forested hill area in the background of the Salzkammergut landscape in St. Agatha gives an impression of continuously unfolding depth. However, Klimt gradually omits color shading further into the distance and uses a uniform hazy grayish-green color for the full depiction. As in the painting of the fruit garden completed around the same time, he fuses the treetops together into a uniform flat section with colorful dabs of paint, which also appear to be on the same plane as the meadow in the foreground. Even the treetrunks bear witness to the spatiality of the "real" world, despite their closeness to silhouettes.