The Large Poplar I

Between 1900 and 1903, Gustav Klimt painted two pictures of a prominent poplar tree that stood adjacent to the Seehof Chapel near Litzlberg on the Attersee. This is the first of the two. Here, Klimt shows a vibrant sunny afternoon with stands of flowering fruit trees planted amidst a field of wildflowers. The second version, now in the collection of the Leopold Museum in Vienna, presents a slightly different vantage point. In that canvas, Klimt focuses on an approaching storm. In August of 1902, he wrote his mistress and model, Marie Zimmermann, about the picture, noting that he was working on "a large poplar at dusk with a storm brewing." In the earlier example, the sky is largely obscured by heavy cloud cover, yet specks of blue sky peak through, capturing the transient qualities of a late summer day.