On the Danube Canal 1907

Richard Gerstl made this oil painting, On the Danube Canal, with what looks like a whole heap of paint. He’s really loading it on, and you can tell he's thinking about the paint as a substance, not just a way to make an image. Look how the paint is troweled onto the buildings, thick and opaque, but then gets almost watery when he paints the canal. Notice the way the individual brushstrokes don't blend together, but sit next to each other like little islands of color. There's a real tension between representation and abstraction at play here. I keep coming back to the sky. See how Gerstl uses these aggressive, swirling strokes? They almost look like the sky is about to crack open. The gesture reminds me of Van Gogh, someone else who knew how to use paint to express powerful emotions. It makes you wonder what was going on in Gerstl's head when he made this. Art doesn’t give us answers, but it lets us feel things deeply.