Pappelallee bei Plankenberg

With a striking lightness of touch, Schindler has represented these tall, sometimes leafless trees that follow the slight curve of the road into the distance. A beautiful autumn day shows the fields in a brown and reddish colour and the sky shining in a light shade. In the hazy light of this atmosphere, the slender trees cast long, silvery shadows. Schindler painted this charming small oil painting near to his residence at Plankenberg in Lower Austria. Even in those works in which the painter lightened his palette, he still remained true to his favourite repertoire of subjects. Schindler had painted poplars on frequent occasions since his trip to Holland in the mid-1870s and these trees formed vertical axes in the landscape compositions of many artists at that time. As in many landscapes, Schindler added the path as a ‘guiding idea’ that leads the viewer through the picture.