Light Landscape 1917

Janos Mattis-Teutsch painted this 'Light Landscape' with what looks like oil on canvas, and the first thing you notice is this breezy sense of the process, as if the painting itself is a kind of weather. The color here, it’s all about feeling. Look at the way the pinks and yellows sit together, creating this vibration, like a hum. The paint is laid on pretty thick, you can see the marks of the brush dancing across the surface, making it a very physical thing. Then your eye is caught by those lines, like pink trunks of a tree. They don’t quite line up with anything, and that's the whole point, to set up this tension. Mattis-Teutsch reminds me of Marsden Hartley, another artist who let feeling guide his brush. It's about letting go of control, of seeing what happens when you let the painting lead you somewhere new. There is something about the ambiguity that gives this piece so much space to breathe.