Avenue I c. 1924

Max Liebermann made Avenue I with pastels, and you can feel his hand moving across the paper, pushing and pulling colour. It's all about the process. There's this amazing layering of tones, a whole symphony of greens, browns, and even hints of pink. Look at how the colours blend and bleed into each other, especially in the foliage. It gives you a real sense of the density of the trees. And then there are these sharp, decisive strokes, like the ones that define the tree trunks – so direct and confident! It's almost like he's carving the forms out of the pastel. Liebermann reminds me of Corot, especially his ability to capture light and atmosphere with just a few well-placed marks. The point is not about answers, but more about conversation.