Kochel Graveyard 1910

Wassily Kandinsky made "Kochel Graveyard" with oils, probably en plein air. I can imagine him, the chill in the air, squinting at the scene. Look at the marks. See how they seem quickly and intuitively laid down? Notice how he balances the weight of the red roof with that juicy yellow ground? There's also the thick, almost clumsy application of paint, yet the overall effect is one of harmony. I think Kandinsky may have been really trying to capture the light reflecting off the snow. I imagine him standing there, wrestling with the image, editing with each stroke. It's like he's trying to get something down, not just what he sees, but how he feels, what he thinks. He isn't after likeness, he's after an expression. Think of other expressionist painters like Kirchner or Heckel. They're all speaking the same language, even though their dialects differ. They were each developing painting as a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.