Compositie 1914 - 1916

This is a watercolor, Compositie, by Jules Schmalzigaug, and it’s all about breaking things down, right? The grid is so precise, but the colors, they’re flowing and bleeding into each other, like emotions you can’t quite contain. Look at that one little brown triangle. It's so dark and intense compared to the lighter colors around it. It’s like a little pocket of something heavy in the middle of all this lightness. I’m thinking about Hilma af Klint, who was also doing these kinds of abstract compositions, trying to find a visual language for something beyond the everyday. What I love about this piece, though, is the sense of process. You can almost see him mixing the colors, figuring it out as he goes. It’s not about perfection, but about the act of searching, of trying to make sense of the world, one little triangle at a time.