Over the Water 

Curator: This is "Over the Water" by Adalbert Erdeli, created with oil paint, seemingly en plein air. What is your first impression of the work? Editor: Well, there’s a certain melancholy hanging over the scene. It's undeniably beautiful, with a striking, warm light hitting the water, but those colors also hint at a kind of fading, a certain somber reflection. Curator: It's interesting you perceive that sadness. The hazy, dreamlike quality speaks to me of something timeless. Water is often used as a symbol of subconsciousness, change and movement. Editor: I agree with the dreamlike aspect. I think the indistinctness pushes us towards considering how landscapes, especially those rendered with this impressionistic style, mirror the interior landscapes of the viewer. What are the politics of seeing, even when the subject seems so natural and neutral? Curator: I’m interested in your attention to "neutrality." Even in an expressionistic work like this, the natural world possesses potent symbolism that transcends borders. Consider the recurring motif of the tree in art; its branching roots mirror the connection to the earth, to ancestry. Erdeli positions it quite prominently, wouldn't you say? Editor: Definitely, and that tree, especially with its somewhat bare branches, appears like a marker of time and endurance. But I am intrigued by this tension in landscape painting where an image claims universality, when access to the land is and has historically been fraught with inequalities. Who is invited into the scene, who feels excluded from this visual paradise? Curator: You are speaking to accessibility as a sort of coded symbolism within a landscape—access, resources. From an iconographic lens, the sun and its reflections here evoke ideas of enlightenment, consciousness, and creative force. In traditional lore, the sun often stands in for wisdom, reason. Editor: Exactly. It makes me consider what wisdom this painting offers. Is it about reconnecting to the natural world, or about facing the complicated histories embedded in our perceptions of nature and nation? Perhaps it is both. Curator: Yes, I think that resonance encapsulates much of why "Over the Water" has captured my attention. It uses familiar imagery to reflect something that is hard to pin down in words. Editor: Indeed. It’s a compelling testament to how much our projections shape how we see and relate to the world around us and, significantly, the art that depicts it.