Schneeschmelze (Melting Snow) 1922

Max Pechstein made this painting called *Schneeschmelze*, or *Melting Snow*, sometime in the early twentieth century, likely with oil on canvas. Look at the foreground and how Pechstein uses these expressive marks, little dashes and commas of dark paint, to give definition to the snow and the bare earth, almost like an unfinished drawing. The paint is neither particularly thick nor thin, it's just right, you know? It's the way it sits on the canvas that gives the work its punch. The snow, rendered in blues and greens, is so very tactile. The painting reminds me a little of Emil Nolde, who was also working in Germany at this time. Both artists capture something essential about the landscape and their relationship to it. There's something almost melancholic in the colours, the bare trees, and the sense of a season in transition. The painting doesn't try to resolve itself, it embraces ambiguity.