Stadsgezicht van Luzern gelegen tegen een berglandschap 1895 - 1910

This anonymous view of Lucerne nestled against a mountain landscape is, I’m guessing, a photograph with applied color, set into an album page. The color is really intriguing, it has that kind of slightly unreal feeling that comes with hand-tinting. I find myself drawn to the relationship between the built environment and the natural landscape. The way the rooftops huddle together, a kind of earthy brown mass, and the neat rows of trees in the foreground, against the huge backdrop of the mountain. The composition leads the eye upward, from the detailed foreground to the softer, dreamier mountain range. It is a very gentle sweep. There’s a similar kind of balance in the work of someone like Lois Dodd, who also finds these lovely harmonies between buildings, trees and the sky. Ultimately, what interests me in both of these artists, is this interest in finding a kind of equilibrium, a sense of harmony, in what we see and make. Art is a conversation after all, isn’t it?