Waldlandschaft 1925

Otto Mueller made this painting of a woodland, most likely in Germany, with oil on canvas. Look at how he lets the paint sit on the canvas, scrubbed in, almost like a stain. You can feel the physical presence of the paint. It's not trying to trick you into thinking it's anything other than pigment on a surface. See the way the paint is built up on those tree trunks, especially the yellowish one that leans in toward the center of the frame? The color isn't blended smoothly; instead, he lets different shades sit next to each other, creating a textured, almost sculptural effect. Mueller was part of Die Brücke, a group of expressionist artists, and you can see some of that raw emotion in the way he handles the paint. It’s as if he's wrestling with the canvas, trying to capture not just what the forest looks like but how it feels to be in there, surrounded by all that life. It reminds me of the work of Emil Nolde, who had a similar way of using color and texture to evoke feeling. Ultimately, it shows us that art doesn’t need to be photorealistic to be real.