Schloss by the Water

Schloss by the Water (German - Wasserschloss) or Schloss Kammer on the Attersee I (Schloss Kammer am Attersee I) is a 1908 oil on canvas painting by Gustav Klimt now in the National Gallery Prague.

It is the first of four oil on canvas paintings in a series created in 1908-1910 during a summer holiday at the Villa Oleander at Schörfling am Attersee. Klimt and the Flöge family rented the village from Scloss Kammer's owner, Countess Kefenhüller. Reviews called it "the main and most brilliant work" at the 1909 Vienna Art Exhibition, where it was first exhibited. It was exhibited the following year at the Union of Czech-German Artists in Prague, from which it was acquired by its current owner.

The work reflects a change in Klimt's painting, with a stronger composition than previously and the painting's strictly parallel structure. He chose a viewpoint from the quay by the villa, from which the Schloss's cubic facade could be seen behind the lake's reflective surface through the tall pyramidal poplars. Using a self-invented cardboard 'viewfinder', a telescope and opera glasses, he also dissected the visible landscape into separate areas before rearranging them into separated planes of lake and shore - the church bell tower looks close to the Schloss but is in reality about 800 metres away by water in Seewalchen. The lack of shadows, the horizon line right at the top of the painting, the reflection and the limited palette of white, ochre and green allowed him to flatten the image but still portray the landscape in a realistic-illusionistic fashion.