Steinberg c. 1924

Karl Wiener made this pastel landscape, Steinberg, in Hamburg. It’s got these great loose marks and a restrained palette that feels very intuitive. I love the way Wiener builds up the image with these layered strokes. You can really see the physicality of the pastel at play, especially in the sky, where the colors blend and bleed into each other. The texture is almost velvety, making the whole scene feel dreamy and a little melancholic. Look at the upper left corner, those strokes suggesting a heavy grey cloud, that's a good example of how a few marks can suggest so much. This piece reminds me a bit of some of the landscapes by Marsden Hartley, especially in how they capture a sense of place through color and light. It's like Wiener is having a conversation with art history, but in his own quiet, unassuming way. It's a good reminder that art is always an ongoing dialogue, with artists building on each other's ideas and pushing the boundaries of what's possible.