On a Meadow c. 1905

Moriz Melzer made this image, On a Meadow, and its simplified forms and bold colour palette feel like a stage set where all the characters are players. There's a real sense of artmaking as a process of continual revision at work here, the green ground feels like the artist is actively moving colour around. The material aspects of the work are very interesting, the texture of the green and pink grounds are very present, and I'd guess were applied with a soft brush, but the figures are delineated with much finer marks. Note the careful use of the pink pigment, it sits in opposition to the green ground, creating a figure/ground relationship within the painting that is both harmonious and unsettling. I think of Paula Modersohn-Becker when I look at this; like her, Melzer embraces ambiguity, inviting multiple interpretations rather than fixed meanings.