A Corner of a Rental Garden 1909

Fritz Schulze drew this suggestive charcoal landscape, A Corner of a Rental Garden, in 1909. Look at the shed; that dark rectangle set against the dense scribble of foliage. You can almost feel Schulze’s hand moving across the paper, building up layers of grey, black and off-white, trying to grasp the in-betweenness of a place, like when you're standing between things, not quite here or there. I love the way he renders the trees with this scratchy energy – each line vibrates with its own little life. What was he thinking about while drawing this? Was he remembering his childhood? Was he trying to capture the essence of this little garden? Painters are always talking to each other across time, you know? Schulze’s atmospheric take on the landscape makes me think of Symbolist artists, but in a totally unique voice. This is what painting is all about: an ongoing, ambiguous conversation.