Small Landscape on the Traunsee, Aug. 1907

For his painting Small Landscape on the Traunsee, Richard Gerstl (1883–1908) chose an almost square picture format. Between the treetops, the artist captured the lake and the mountains looming in the background in shades of blue and green. Vegetation, water, mountains and sky are depicted in free, gestic brushwork. During Gerstl’s summer sojourn in Gmunden on the Traunsee lake in 1907, which he spent with Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951) and his friends, the artist began to forsake realistic details. His initially Pointillist application of paint becomes more dynamic here, resulting in brushstrokes that keep changing direction. Furthermore, Gerstl stopped painting before he reached the edge of the picture, thus enhancing the autonomous character of the work and discarding the Impressionist illusion of reproducing the painter’s field of vision.

AGW, 2022