Pear Tree (Klimt)
| Pear Tree | |
|---|---|
| Birnbaum (German) | |
| Artist | Gustav Klimt |
| Year | 1903 |
| Medium | Oil and casein on canvas[1] |
| Dimensions | 101 cm × 101 cm (40 in × 40 in)[1] |
| Location | Busch–Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
Pear Tree (German: Birnbaum) or Pear Trees[2] is an oil painting on canvas by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, painted in 1903. Depicting a pear tree in full bloom, it was probably begun during Klimt's stay at Lake Attersee and completed in Vienna before its exhibition later that year. It is now housed in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, one of the Harvard Art Museums in Massachusetts.
Background
Pointillism influenced Klimt's painting style around the turn of the century, with Farmhouse and Fruit Trees (both 1901) as two examples. At this time, Klimt was particularly receptive to new artistic influences, which he incorporated into his own style. Up to 1902, his work retained a strong attachment to landscape through its organic forms and atmospheric treatment. Subsequently, his approach became increasingly detached from direct observation, as he held objects at a greater distance, depicting them in a more abstract manner.[3] By 1900, Klimt may have seen reproductions of Claude Monet's work. At the 1903 Vienna Secession exhibition he was directly exposed to works by Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh.[4] Pear Tree was one of Klimt’s first landscapes in his Pointillist-influenced late style.[2]
Pear Tree was probably begun in August 1903 during Klimt's stay at Litzlberg on Lake Attersee, and completed at his studio in Vienna before its appearance in his November retrospective.[5][6]
Description
A pear tree in full bloom dominates the composition. Unlike the horizontal format traditionally associated with landscape painting, Pear Tree is executed on a square canvas. This has been attributed to the square viewfinder used by Klimt to select landscape subjects around the Attersee countryside. Individual dabs of paint represent leaves, blossoms and fruit within the tree. Branches fuse together to create a dense canopy, leaving the sky visible only in the upper corners of the canvas. The painting's flat, flickering field of colour recalls both post-impressionist painting and Byzantine mosaics.[1][6] A distant hedge limits the view through the orchard.[6]
Stephan Koja has interpreted the expansive foliage as recalling the flat-patterned surfaces of Klimt's golden phase works, while the viewer's position beneath the trees creates a sense of looking into the orchard. He notes that in works such as Pear Tree and Roses Under Trees (1905), a "painted mosaic" increasingly spread across the canvas in a "carpet-like structure".[7] Karen Wilkin argues that Pear Tree anticipated several features of Klimt's later landscapes, including repetitive brushstrokes, an inventive range of greens, blues, and yellows, a square format, and an underlying geometric structure.[4]
Provenance
Klimt gave the painting to his muse, Emilie Louise Flöge, in 1903, but continued to work on it thereafeter, probably until his death.[1][8] By 1933 it was in the collection of Otto Kallir's Neue Galerie in Vienna and by 1939 it was in Kallir's Galerie St. Etienne in Paris, which relocated to New York the following year. In 1956, Kallir donated the work to the Fogg Museum, one of the Harvard Art Museums in Massachusetts.[1] Today it is housed in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, another of the Harvard Art Museums, where it remains on permanent display.[1][9]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Pear Tree". Harvard Art Museums. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ a b Smith, Roberta (March 10, 2024). "Klimt Landscape Show Is More, and Less, Than Expected". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ Koja 2006, pp. 66–67.
- ^ a b Wilkin, Karen (February 24, 2024). "'Klimt Landscapes' Review: Gustav Beyond the Glitter at the Neue Galerie". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 13, 2026.
- ^ "Birnbaum 1903". klimt.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
- ^ a b c Bailey et al. 2001, p. 103.
- ^ Koja 2006, p. 67.
- ^ "The Golden Knight and Femmes Fatales". Gustav Klimt-Datenbank. Under heading 'Trees and Forests'. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
- ^ Goldstein, Meredith (March 20, 2026). "A Klimt tree blooms in the Harvard Art Museums". The Boston Globe. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
Bibliography
- Bailey, Colin B.; Colins, John; Vergo, Peter; Braun, Emily; Kallir, Jane; Bisanz-Prakken, Marian (2001), Bailey, Colin B. (ed.), Gustav Klimt: Modernism in the Making (Exhibition catalogue), New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
- Koja, Stephan (2006), Gustav Klimt Landscapes, translated by Gabriel, John; Law, Rebecca; McInnes, Robert, Prestel Publishing, ISBN 978-3-7913-3717-3