The Bear 1907

Wassily Kandinsky made “The Bear” using tempera, gouache, and oil, and it's interesting how he combines these different mediums to create a surface that feels both matte and luminous. This layering is key to how I think about my own process. Look at the ground, those vertical striations of blue: you can almost feel the gesture of the brushstrokes. This repetitive mark-making gives the painting a real sense of depth, like we're looking down into water or a dense forest floor. These rhythmic marks create a tension with the more flattened, abstracted forms of the figures and landscape. The colors, too, are so unexpected – that pinkish mountain, the red and green dots that might be foliage. It's a world seen through a subjective, emotional lens. Kandinsky reminds me of Marsden Hartley in the way he simplifies and intensifies landscape, pushing it towards abstraction, while still retaining a sense of place and feeling. Art is always a conversation, a way of seeing and responding to the world and to each other.