What the painting shows

Garden Landscape with Hilltop by Klimt fills a square canvas with a dense field of blooming flora and a rising green hill. The lower half of the composition presents a bank of white and pale pink blossoms. Dabs of blue, violet, and orange petals punctuate the white flowers, set against strokes of pale green and earth-toned ground.

Above the flower bank, green foliage and tall stems climb toward the center. Groups of yellow, dark blue, and red blossoms cluster on the right, while pale fruit hangs on small trees toward the left. A steep hillside covers the upper register, dominated by speckled brushstrokes of deep greens, blues, and ochres that extend almost to the upper corners, leaving only tiny patches of sky visible at the very top edge.

The story behind it

Klimt completed the work in 1916. Across his career, he returned repeatedly to landscapes and rural greenery during summer retreats away from his studio in Vienna. This painting belongs to his group of flowers and gardens, which often explored close-up perspectives of cultivated country plots.

The painting is also recorded under alternative titles, including Parish Garden, Horticultural Landscape with a Hilltop (Parish Garden), and the German title Gartenlandschaft mit Bergkuppe (Pfarrgarten). Like many of his mature garden scenes, it measures 110 by 110 centimeters, using an exact square format that flattens spatial depth across the picture plane.

Where to see it

The original painting is in the permanent collection of Kunsthaus Zug in Zug, Switzerland.