View of the Main 1923

Jakob Nussbaum made this watercolor, View of the Main, at an unknown date. It's a landscape, but it feels more like a state of mind. The palette is muted, almost monochromatic, built from layers of grays and browns, which he coaxes into a surprising range of tones. Look at the marks! See how they build up to describe the scene: quick, gestural lines for the trees, broader washes for the buildings and the river. The strokes of color feel decisive, reflecting a sense of immediacy. Take the plume of smoke rising from the factory chimney. It’s just a few quick flicks of watery gray, but it suggests so much about the industrial landscape and the atmosphere of the scene. It rises and dissolves in the sky, it's so fleeting. There’s a bit of Emil Nolde in Nussbaum’s emotional intensity and his embrace of watercolor’s fluidity. And like Nolde, there is a sense of an artist trying to capture not just what he sees, but what he feels. It’s that ambiguity, that space for multiple readings, that keeps us coming back to art.