Thaw 1901

L.A. Ring made 'Thaw,' using oil paint to give us a slice of a muted, almost melancholic landscape. It’s all about the grays and browns here, a real commitment to the subtle shifts in tone that make up a Northern winter. The paint is laid on thinly, allowing the texture of the canvas to peek through in places, which gives it this immediacy. There's a broken wooden fence in the foreground, and the way Ring renders each plank, each splinter, it’s like he’s inviting us to feel the weight of the wood, the cold of the snow. Notice the way the colors blend together at the horizon line, where the sky meets the frozen ground, it almost disappears altogether. It's like a quiet hum that resonates throughout the whole piece. You could say he's a cousin of someone like Vilhelm Hammershøi, with that similar sense of understated drama and quiet contemplation. But Ring, like all great artists, has his own voice, his own way of making us see the world anew.