Landscape at Caux with increasing clouds 1917

Ferdinand Hodler made this painting, Landscape at Caux with Increasing Clouds, with oil on canvas. You can see how the paint is laid on pretty thick, especially in the clouds, and it's so cool how he uses these repeated, almost rhythmic marks. It's like he's trying to capture not just how things look, but how they *feel* over time. Check out the way the green of the landscape kind of bleeds into the blue of the sky – there's this hazy, dreamlike quality to it. You can almost feel the air moving, the light shifting. Hodler's work reminds me a bit of Munch, in the way he's using color and form to express these big, overwhelming emotions about life, death, and nature. It's not about capturing a perfect image, but about finding a way to express something essential and deeply felt. Art, after all, is an ongoing exchange of ideas, isn't it?