Farm Garden with Crucifix 1912

Gustav Klimt made this square painting, Farm Garden with Crucifix, with oil on canvas. The way the garden almost obscures the crucifix makes me think about how even the heaviest stuff – you know, death and sacrifice – is just part of the everyday. Klimt’s mark-making is so energetic, with short, loaded brushstrokes that vibrate with color. I can see the artist building up the surface, a constant back-and-forth, layering and adjusting, trying to capture the feeling of a place rather than just its look. I wonder if Klimt ever felt like he was wrestling with the paint, trying to get it to do what he wanted, only to realize the paint had its own ideas. The crucifix, almost swallowed by the garden’s dense beauty, feels like a small, human-made structure trying to hold its own against nature’s persistence. Artists look at each other's work across time. Klimt probably looked at other garden paintings, and for sure other artists have looked at this one, taking courage from how Klimt embraced ambiguity and uncertainty, and then gone on to make paintings of their own.