Stillleben mit zwei Köpfen 1914

Heinrich Campendonk made this painting, Still Life with Two Heads, with oil on canvas, and what strikes me right away is how he's not afraid to let the process show. You can see the brushstrokes, the way he builds up the color in layers. It's like he's inviting us to witness the act of creation itself. The painting is a riot of color and texture, a jumble of objects and figures that somehow manage to hold together. Take that fish on the plate, for instance. It's rendered in these juicy, vibrant oranges and yellows, and the way he's applied the paint, you can almost feel the scales. Then there's the blue of the jug, which is so intense it seems to vibrate against the surrounding colors. Campendonk reminds me a little of Kirchner, in the way he uses color to create a sense of unease and disorientation. But there's also a playfulness to his work, a willingness to embrace ambiguity and let the painting be what it wants to be. Ultimately, it's a testament to the power of art to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary.