Tile 1897 - 1913

This decorative tile of a landscape was made by Charles Volkmar sometime around the turn of the century. It’s a simple scene, but what's compelling here is the way the image emerges through layers of color, creating depth and atmosphere. You can almost feel the dampness in the air. The colors are mostly muted greens and browns, but there’s this concentrated burst of yellow that hints at sunlight filtering through the trees, or perhaps the moon. It reminds me of the way I build up paintings through layering and glazing, letting the colors interact to create something unexpected. Look at the texture, too, how the glaze pools and crackles in places. It's less about capturing a perfect likeness and more about capturing a mood. It reminds me a little of Albert Pinkham Ryder, in that both were drawn to the darker, more mysterious aspects of the American landscape. Volkmar is doing his thing, and Ryder was doing his thing. You know, it all just keeps going around.