On the Bank 1914

Frederick Carl Frieseke made this bathing scene with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is the all-overness of it: everywhere you look, there's a similar density of paint, a vibrating field of blue, white, and yellow hues. I can imagine Frieseke standing before the canvas, his brush dancing across the surface, creating a mosaic of small, deliberate marks. He’s really going for it with the cool blues and soft whites, building up the form of the figure with delicate strokes. I like how the solid form is gently broken up by these strokes, so the figure seems to blend into the scene, like she is one with the landscape. Then, there is the shadow beneath her, painted with dabs of dark blue. What does it mean? What was he thinking? It reminds me of the way Bonnard handled color and light, creating these shimmering surfaces that seem to dissolve before your eyes. These artists, they are all in conversation, exchanging ideas across time and space. For me, painting is like that too, an ongoing dialogue with the past, present, and future.