The Large Poplar II (Gathering Storm)

• Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)
• 1902/03
• Oil on canvas
• Leopold Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt painted this view by a chapel in Litzlberg on the Lake Attersee. The towering poplar tree powerfully rises toward the sky. Shimmery tangle of dots were combined to create the color of the poplar leaves, about which a critic remarked that they looked like “trout blotches.”. The sky that takes up most of the canvas is filled with stormy dark clouds that bring the emotional quality of the painting to the extremes. This painting is one of the examples in which Klimt explored the harmony and beauty of nature instead of his typical repertoire of urban portraits.