Born in New York City, Lyonel Feininger studied music and art in Hamburg, Germany, and painting at the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin. The architecture of German cities became a main subject for his early art. In Schlossgasse, he used a Cubist style to depict a closed alley. The viewer sees buildings from different angles and perspectives simultaneously. The houses are painted in precise, sharply defined forms in a flattened and compressed space.