Moonlit hill 1907

Tadeusz Makowski painted this ‘Moonlit Hill’ with oil on wood in, well, we’re not entirely sure when! But it feels like a place of in-between states. The blues and browns meld into each other, as though everything is becoming, or maybe un-becoming. Look at the way the paint is applied in such a direct, unfussy way; it’s almost like each stroke is a thought. I love how the landscape is built up with these marks, like a visual stream of consciousness. Notice how the moon isn't quite a perfect circle, but rather an off-kilter smudge of light, and the way the sky looks like it has been scrubbed with a dry brush. It reminds me of Marsden Hartley, who was also trying to capture something raw and elemental in his landscapes. But Makowski has a tenderness about him, a certain vulnerability. It’s not about mastering the landscape, but about being in conversation with it. Art isn’t about answers; it’s about keeping the questions alive.