Opera: Malcesine
Year: 1913
The production that characterizes Klimt during his stay in Italy is linked to the landscape, which is never realistic even if it corresponds to the truth, but is in reality only a landscape of the soul.
The painting was made by looking at the landscape at a great distance through a telescope.
This allows on the one hand to eliminate the perspective by flattening and flattening the image, on the other hand there is a physical detachment from the subject to be represented.
Characteristics of this painting are the absolute immobility, the deliberate elimination of perspective, the fact that the sky has been almost eliminated and the lake has been reduced, precisely in a place where water and sky dominate unchallenged so that the landscape of the painting truly becomes a description of the soul.
It has always been claimed that this painting was destroyed in the infamous fire of 8 May 1945 in the castle of Immendorf by the SS.
Lately, however, the hypothesis has been advanced that the painting has been stolen and that it is probably still in circulation. In the list of paintings present in the castle at the time of the fire, the painting from Malcesine does not appear.