Landscape in Dark Colours (Trees) 1918

Janos Mattis-Teutsch made this Landscape in Dark Colors with a real sense of joy in the process. Look at the dark outlines and the way the colors don't quite fit inside them, it's like coloring in, but with this knowledge of all the serious art that's come before. I really get a kick out of how Mattis-Teutsch handled the paint. It's thick, but not trying to be anything other than itself. The colors are wild – pinks and purples in the ground, a slash of red in the background, and these Dr. Seuss-like plants in front. It’s like he’s saying, "Here’s a landscape, but not really." It's interesting how the darkness of the lines almost seems to make the colors brighter. Mattis-Teutsch was part of the expressionist movement, but this has an outsider, almost folk-arty feel. Maybe it’s a bit like early Kandinsky? It’s as if he were trying to find some new way to express what a landscape is. And I think he nails it, not in a representational way, but in a feeling.