Jerusalem, Blick auf Ölberg und Tempelplatz von Südwest 1925

Jakob Nussbaum made this view of Jerusalem with ink in 1925. Look at how he's laid down these washes, so thin you can see the paper underneath, and then he comes back with these sharp lines and jabs of darker ink. It’s this constant back and forth, this process of layering and editing, that makes the image so compelling. The whole scene is rendered in shades of grey, which gives it this hazy, dreamlike quality. The eye travels over the marks on the paper and you can imagine the wind blowing over the hilltop, the light shifting. Notice the figures near the bottom right, they are so small but so powerfully placed. The eye travels from them up the hill to the temple above. You know, this kind of work reminds me a little of Cy Twombly, who also used line and wash to create these sprawling, almost illegible landscapes. Both artists seem to be more interested in the act of looking, of trying to capture a feeling or a memory, than in creating a perfect representation.