Landscape with Fir Trees 1902

Konstantinos Parthenis's little painting of fir trees looks like it came together bit by bit, maybe outside, maybe in the studio, with lots of looking and squinting. I wonder about his looking, walking around, thinking about other landscape painters, or just trying to get it right. There’s a path that swoops into the picture, and I think maybe he worked from that in? Or did he add it later, as a way into the mountains in the background? The paint is thin in some places, thicker in others, like he was trying to get the balance just right. The dark trees against the hazy mountain—did he start dark and then wipe it away? These questions are the best part of painting, not the answers. Painters are always looking at each other, across time, building on what came before, trying to find something new in the old. And when I look, I feel like I’m part of that conversation too.