This large scale presentation of a unique panorama featuring Upper Lake Balaton is one of the landscapes which the Hungarian government commissioned Brodszky, a successful artist, in the early 1870s to paint for the Hungarian National Museum. A short time before, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences had entrusted Antal Ligeti with the task of painting landscapes of similar size with castles. Thus, series of pictures of both artists illustrate what landscapes official circles expected an artist to paint.
Brodszky portrayed a storm at Balaton and castles around the lake before he had returned to Hungary. From the early 1880s, there had been a cult of Lake Balaton which had been growing stronger and stronger, and besides newer publications of Sándor Kisfaludy's sagas with illustrations, veduta series and illustrations to magazines appeared on the same subject matter. In painting, however, Brodszky was second to none: it was him who most often returned to the subject matter which promised him success.
He drew some sketches from the high ground by the lake at Meszesgyörök, then painted the picture on the basis of the sketches in his studio. The stormy weather, the size of the picture and the lengthy painting technique was not suitable for painting pictures right on the spot. The grandiose impression of the picture was enhanced by careful composition, the balance of dark and light patches, and stressed and unstressed details. Instead of medieval ruins of Csobánc and Szigliget, Brodszky concentrated on rich forms of nature and a variety of atmospheric conditions. Thus, he approached the style of Károly Lotz, more realistic than that of Brodszky, by developing heroising historic landscape painting.