Garden Gate 1914

August Macke made this watercolor, called "Garden Gate," at an unknown date. Look how Macke's approach to color is so fluid, those washes of pigment bled into each other! You can really see how artmaking can be a process of layering and building up images bit by bit. The material aspects of this piece are really interesting. The way the blue seeps into everything, like the garden is underwater. Is the paint thick or thin, transparent or opaque? The answer here is definitely transparent, which is key to its effect. Focus on the blue gate and the topiary above it. The shadows there feel like they’re alive, dancing across the surface. Macke, who was part of the German Expressionist group "Der Blaue Reiter" or "The Blue Rider," shared affinities with artists like Wassily Kandinsky, who also explored the spiritual and emotional potential of color and abstraction. The painting invites us to consider the multiple layers of meaning inherent in art, embracing the ambiguities that make it so compelling.