Blauer Berg 1910

Alexej von Jawlensky created "Blauer Berg" with oils, and you can sense him building up the image, shifting and solidifying what he sees with each brushstroke. That mountain! It’s just so incredibly blue. It dominates the composition with its dark outline and monumental presence. I wonder if he stood outside, squinting, willing the landscape to conform to his vision. Or perhaps he had to invent what he couldn't find. The way the colors push against each other—that pink sky, the bright red splotch, the greens and blues of the land—it all feels so alive, so unresolved. You can see him searching, making choices, questioning them, moving on. Painting is so much like thinking out loud. It makes me wanna run to my studio and start pushing paint around, and see what happens, see what emerges. It makes me think of Kandinsky, they moved in the same circles and had similar sensibilities. What a conversation they must have had, using paint as their language!