Kallmünz—Light-Green Mountains 1903

Wassily Kandinsky made this small oil painting on cardboard, Kallmünz—Light-Green Mountains. I just love how, even at this early stage, the brushstrokes already have that incredible energy. Look closely, and you can see how the paint is applied with a really direct, almost chunky touch. He uses these short, hatched strokes that feel both descriptive and totally abstract at the same time, especially in that big field of green. The colours are so vivid, but it's the texture that really gets me. You can almost feel the bristles of the brush dragging across the surface. That area of dark blue rock on the left, where the strokes become really vertical, is so nice. You can see how it pushes against the green of the mountain, creating this real sense of depth and movement. It kind of reminds me of Van Gogh, in a weird way, especially how he was able to find a kind of spiritual quality in everyday landscapes. But with Kandinsky you see the push towards abstraction more clearly, like he's trying to capture a feeling more than a place.