Lovis Corinth in the Berlin Atelier 1904

Aura Hertwig made this photograph called, Lovis Corinth in the Berlin Atelier. In this evocative image, Corinth holds his tools and palette, as if caught in a moment between creating. You can feel the weight of those brushes in his hand, and get a sense of the textures of the paint on that palette. The face behind the brushes stares intently; the brushes form a barrier or a bridge. I am also a painter, and sometimes I feel like I'm having a conversation with artists of the past. Like Corinth, for example. He was grappling with the same questions about form, space, and how to capture the world around us, especially the ways our perception is shaped by emotions. I imagine him wondering how to transform the chaos of life into something coherent on the canvas, and perhaps it is that struggle that makes his paintings so compelling. Artists build on each other’s ideas, challenging and inspiring one another across time. Each painting is not just a picture, but an invitation into this ongoing dialogue.