Gustav Klimt Unterach Manor and Lock Chamber on the Attersee Lake, c.1908

In 1908 Klimt first turned his attention to the building at Schloss Kammer itself and his approach remained typically statc: differences of plane and texture were minimized, and the mirroring properties of the water were exaggerated to present land and lake as an unbroken continuum. Nevertheless, the introduction of an architectural element constituted a new direction, and one that was to become increasingly evident in his later work and breaking the grip of overall patterning so characteristic of the mosaic style at its zenith. Like many of his Attersee landscapes, "Schloss Kammer" was probably painted from the water. Klimt was a keen sailor and is said to have been among the first on the lake to own a motorboat. He often worked outdoors, hiding his materials in the underbush so as not to have to drag them out each day. A photographic perspective was achieved through the use of a telescope or binoculars and a square ivory framing device. (Not coincidentally, all the artist's landscapes after 1899 were square.) Klimt had come to the genre relatively late in his professional life, he was not prejudiced by the traditional training that conditioned his figural assignments. Thus these paintings often have an immediacy that is lacking in his studio work.