Berlin street scene with horse-drawn cabs 1910

Lesser Ury made this painting of a Berlin street scene with horse-drawn cabs, and it looks like he did it alla prima, wet on wet, right on the spot. I love how Ury used these vertical strokes, like the painting itself is melting! It almost looks like a photograph, but it’s also totally made up, right? That blurry light makes the painting appear as though it is about to dissolve before our eyes. But wait, look how the artist interrupts the flow with the dark accents of the carriages, the horses. It’s funny, I’m reminded of Gerhard Richter’s paintings of blurred photographs. Richter came a bit later, but he also understood the power of a blurred image to evoke a sense of memory, or maybe a feeling of fleeting time. I think Ury and Richter are onto something similar: this idea that art is not about capturing reality, but about creating a space for feeling and for thinking about the world in new ways.