Het kruien van het ijs op de Maas te Rotterdam 1907

This muted scene of Rotterdam's Maas River frozen over, was captured by Adolf le Comte, we don't know when, with what looks like watercolour and chalk. You can feel the cold just looking at it! Le Comte captures the icy chaos of the river with these smudgy, broken marks. He's not trying to trick us into thinking this is real; he's showing us how he *felt* about this frozen landscape. I mean, look at how the grey wash almost obscures the buildings in the background! It’s all about mood, a melancholic, wintry atmosphere. The texture of the ice is so tangible, you can almost hear it crackling. I love the way he contrasts the soft, blurred edges of the ice floes with the stark, vertical lines of the wooden poles on the right. It’s like a visual poem about the push and pull between nature and the city, chaos and order. It makes me think of Whistler's atmospheric studies of the Thames, but with a colder, more northern light. Just beautiful.