Thunersee 1931

Cuno Amiet made this painting, Thunersee, probably fairly quickly, using oil on paper. Look at the blues – they aren't blended much, but laid on with brushy strokes, like he’s in a hurry to catch the feeling of the sky. The paint feels thin, almost translucent in places, especially in the sky where the brushstrokes create texture. But then there's that band of red on the horizon, a thick, confident stripe that anchors the whole scene, drawing your eye back from the sky to the earth. It’s like a grounding force, a reminder of the solid world beneath all that airy lightness. Amiet’s got a Fauvist energy, echoing the spirit of artists like early Kandinsky or even Marsden Hartley. There’s this sense of immediacy, of trying to capture a fleeting moment. He's not trying to trick you into thinking this IS a sky, but he IS trying to deliver a sense of the sky. It's more like a love letter to a feeling, than a postcard.