Rhythmic Composition 1951

Ernst Wilhelm Nay made this watercolour, "Rhythmic Composition," with flowing washes of yellow, green, pink and orange. I can almost feel Nay’s hand moving across the paper, coaxing these abstract shapes into being. Look how the colours bleed and blend, creating soft, translucent layers. I think this work feels intuitive, where the act of painting becomes a dance between control and chance. It reminds me of my own struggles in the studio, trying to capture a feeling or a thought with just a few strokes of the brush. Maybe Nay felt a similar kind of frustration, or maybe he found a sense of freedom in letting the water and pigment do their thing. You can see him following in the footsteps of Paul Klee and Kandinsky, embracing abstraction as a way to express something beyond the visible world. We can't know for sure, but that's painting for you: always a question, never a final answer.