Tyrolean Landscape. Study for Der Sämann 1903

Albin Egger-Lienz made this oil painting, "Tyrolean Landscape", as a study, and you can see how the earth and mountains emerge through layers of warm browns and greens. It reminds me that a painting is often about uncovering something through a process. Look closely, and you'll notice how the strokes of color are not blended. Instead, they sit side by side, creating texture and a certain kind of light. There's a particular patch of brown in the foreground that seems to have been built up from smaller marks. It’s like the artist is showing us the very act of constructing the land, the way you might pile up earth with a shovel. It's this physicality that makes the painting feel so alive and grounded. It makes me think of Courbet, another painter who was interested in the weight and substance of paint and the way it can evoke the weight and substance of the world. It’s a reminder that paintings are not just pictures, they’re experiences, full of ambiguities and always open to new ways of seeing.