The top of the mountain glistens, and the Rhine flows gently Brita Sachs reviews the summer exhibitions in Salzburg

In the flow of time: A tour of the best gallery exhibitions during the Salzburg Festival

By Brita Sachs, Salzburg 

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At Thaddaeus Ropac, Anselm Kiefer revels in the landscape of his childhood. He grew up by the Rhine and, even as a young boy, was already painting ships and barges with colourful pennants. Pictures that he has now hung in the gallery as part of the new Mein Rhein series. Under the leafy dome of a forest path, he walks to the river. The clumps of paint applied make the foliage appear so vivid that you can almost hear it rustle. The painter's gaze is not drawn to the expanse of the river, but to lonely stretches of bank where tree reflections tremble on the water or where muddy green tones merge into shimmering turquoise in old arms. 

The most striking thing about these paintings is the sheen of the lavishly applied gold leaf. It suggests light and sun, shimmers through the foliage and creates reflections. Anselm Fuit Hic can be read in Kiefer's scrawled writing on the paintings. In some of them, he stands still in his long coat, perhaps pondering the Nibelung gold at the bottom of the river.