Motif from Goisern 1903

Rudolf von Alt made this watercolor painting called "Motif from Goisern" and you can see how the scene is built with layers of translucent washes. The colors are muted—ochres, browns, greens—and the brushstrokes are light, like he was dabbing at the paper. I can imagine him standing there, maybe on a warm day, trying to capture the way the light filters through the trees, making these dappled patterns on the walls of the buildings. He was probably thinking about how to mix the right greens to show the leaves in the foreground versus those further away. The way he handles the tree trunk is interesting, kind of dissolving it into the shadows. It reminds me a little of Turner, that interest in light and atmosphere. I imagine artists are always looking at each other’s work, picking up on ideas, riffing off them, trying to do something new or different. Painting is a way of seeing, and how we see keeps changing.