The Tomb of Achilles 1910

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl made "The Tomb of Achilles" with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is his brushwork – how he balances detail with these almost abstract, energetic marks. It’s like he’s wrestling with the paint, trying to capture something fleeting, something beyond the literal. Look at the way the water crashes against the rocks: that’s not just illustration, that's feeling. The colors are muted, but rich, and there’s a real sense of the physicality of the medium, you can imagine how wet it was. The composition reminds me a little of Böcklin – that same interest in the uncanny and the sublime. But where Böcklin can feel staged, Hirémy-Hirschl feels more raw, more immediate. And it has that open, unresolved quality that all good painting has. It’s not about answers, it’s about questions. It invites you to bring your own story to it.