Mount Sonder 1940

Albert Namatjira made this watercolour painting of Mount Sonder, and looking at it, I can’t help but think about how an artist sees, how they process what’s in front of them. The colour palette here is really interesting, the way he uses these earthy tones to create this sense of depth and distance. It’s not just about copying what’s there, but interpreting it, feeling it, and then translating that onto paper. You can see it in the way the light hits the mountain, these subtle shifts in colour that give it form. Look closely, and you can see the brushstrokes, how he builds up the layers of colour, almost like he’s sculpting the landscape. It’s a very different approach to someone like Cezanne, but there’s a similar attention to the structure and the physicality of the world. It reminds you that painting is as much about process as it is about the end result. It's a conversation between the artist, the landscape, and the materials. It’s about finding new ways of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world.