Gezicht op Isola dei Pescatori, met op de voorgrond een roeiboot before 1903

This is Franz Goerke’s, ‘Gezicht op Isola dei Pescatori, met op de voorgrond een roeiboot’ from around the turn of the century, or perhaps a bit later. I love the tonal gradations here, the way the whole scene is built up from variations of light and dark, from the foreground boat to the town in the distance, and the dark hill behind. There’s a stillness in the way the image is put together, and how that grainy quality gives everything a kind of soft-focus feel. It’s like you could reach out and touch the water, the air, and the stone. The boat in the foreground is just a few dark marks, but they’re enough to give you a sense of its presence. It reminds me of some of the early modernist landscape painters, like Corot or Courbet, who were also interested in capturing the subtleties of light and atmosphere. But Goerke brings his own sensibility to the subject, creating a vision of Italy that is both beautiful and evocative. Art is just one big conversation, isn’t it? Each artist listening and responding to what came before, then adding something new to the mix.