Blumen auf Weiß (Zyklamen und Hyazinthe) 1934

Gabriele Münter painted this still life called Blumen auf Weiß – that’s Flowers on White – with oils, and you can tell she was really feeling the process of pushing paint around. I love how the colors are both realistic and totally made up – the leaves are green, sure, but also kinda purple and brown. And those white flowers! They're not just white, are they? See how she’s used gray to give them shape and weight? It's like she's inventing these flowers as she goes, not just copying them. The brushwork is so direct, you can practically see her hand moving. There's this one little red dot near the top – what’s that doing there? It doesn’t quite “fit” in the scene, but it kind of wakes the whole painting up. Like a little glitch in the matrix. It reminds me a bit of Marsden Hartley, he did these amazing colorful paintings in a similar vein. Anyway, this piece is all about how painting can be a way of seeing, not just recording.