Morning fresh snow: chestnuts (en plein air) 2015

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this watercolor of chestnut trees in a snowy landscape, and it feels like a memory surfacing. The painting happened quickly, outdoors. It’s more of a sketch than a fully-rendered scene. The paper peeks through the pigment. Look at the strokes of blue and green that define the trees, set against the hazy lavender snow. It gives the impression that the artist didn’t have time to think, only to react to what he saw, a dance between perception and execution. I’m sure Krupa was trying to capture the stillness of the scene, the hushed quiet that follows a snowfall, the way the light filters through the bare branches. Like a haiku, he's editing out everything that isn't essential, distilling the landscape to its bare bones. Painting *en plein air* means being in the thick of it, wrestling with the elements, which adds another layer to the experience. Like so many painters, Krupa is in dialogue with the history of landscape painting, with Japanese art, with the very act of seeing.