Schilder Louis Apol in zijn atelier in Den Haag after 1903

This photograph by Sigmund Löw captures the painter Louis Apol in his Hague studio, surrounded by his wintry landscapes. Look at the way the canvases lean, stacked one in front of the other. It’s a dance of planes that feels provisional. Each is held up by its easel, but also supported by its neighbor. This feels like a metaphor for art making to me. How each new brushstroke builds upon the last. The photograph is richly textured, with the carpets, frames, and furniture blending together. The dark tones are offset by patches of bright white from the paintings on the easel. The bare trees depicted in these landscapes are rendered with a delicate, linear quality. Note the repetition of vertical marks. This is a motif which draws our eye across all of the pieces, even the one on which Apol is actively working, creating continuity. There's a real generosity to the way Apol allows the eye to roam freely across each canvas. He shares a common language with contemporaries like Whistler, yet they are both part of a conversation with artists throughout history.