Landskap med ryttare 1928

Nils Dardel made this landscape with a rider probably with watercolour and maybe some gouache, I'd guess, and who knows when? I can imagine Dardel almost shivering in the act of creation – delicately yet intentionally laying down each stroke, each colour, as the landscape gradually emerges. He’s working with thin washes, letting the pigment bleed and bloom. A lone rider trots across the scene, like an exotic prince in his red robe and pointy hat, while deer look on with mild curiosity. I'm drawn to the background where the washes of blue suggest the grandeur of the mountains, but it's all quite flat. I mean, I can almost hear the artist coaxing this dreamscape into being, thinking about Persian miniatures perhaps or Indian painting. This piece feels very specific to Dardel and his particular strangeness, but also contributes to this longer conversation that painters have across time. There's a kind of magic here in this embodied expression, where the ambiguity of place and time allows for so many different interpretations.