Autumn landscape 1900 - 1910

Ladislav Mednyánszky’s, Autumn Landscape, is a pastel drawing, and what strikes me is how he’s not afraid to let the process show. The surface is alive with marks, hatching, and cross-hatching. Look at the way the colors vibrate against each other. The yellows and oranges of the foreground leaves almost seem to hum against the blues and greens of the water. There’s a real physicality to the pastel strokes. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the surface, building up the image layer by layer. See how the blue pastel strokes peek through the orange in the lower left corner? Those kinds of details makes the whole thing sing. It feels very reminiscent of Vuillard’s intimate domestic interiors, where the everyday is elevated through close attention and a sensitivity to color and light. It’s like Mednyánszky is saying, “Hey, look at this! Isn’t it amazing?”