Farvestudie efter Delacroixs maleri Dante og Vergil i Underverdenen, Louvre 1930s

Edvard Weie made this watercolor study after Delacroix's painting Dante and Virgil in the Underworld. It's all about color and how it pushes and pulls the forms into place. Weie's got these simple shapes, like blobs of pigment, and he's letting them stand in for figures, for the background, for everything. The brown and blue hues dominate, creating a moody, almost somber atmosphere. Look at how the watercolor bleeds and blends, creating soft edges and a sense of depth, and notice how the washy quality of the paint gives the piece an ethereal, dreamlike quality. There's this one spot, that earthy brown mass in the center, it’s like the whole painting pivots around it. It's dense, anchoring the composition, but also kind of unstable, like it could dissolve at any moment. Thinking about Weie's color and touch here makes me think of other painters like Marsden Hartley or even Milton Avery. With this piece, Weie reminds us that art is about seeing, feeling, and responding to what's already there, transforming it into something new.