Holland – Strandkörbe 1904

Wassily Kandinsky made "Holland-Strandkörbe" with oil on canvas, smearing and daubing the paint. Just imagine him, out there on the beach with his easel! I can almost feel the energy and freedom that Kandinsky must have felt when he made this painting. There’s something raw about his approach that chimes with me. I feel it in the quick, loaded brushstrokes of sandy yellow across the canvas. The paint is applied so thickly that it seems to mimic the gritty texture of the beach itself. The stones are dollops of muted blues, greys, and browns. The beach huts in the distance are blocks of color, standing shoulder to shoulder. There is a really interesting tension here between representation and abstraction, he is dancing on the edge. It makes me think about how painting invites us to see the world in new ways, maybe even feel it differently too. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? It’s like we are all in conversation, across time, looking and learning from each other.