Bank on the dune 1952

Arno König made this watercolour, Bank on the dune, and you can see how the muted greens, browns, and grays sort of bleed into each other, creating this feeling of a landscape dissolving before your very eyes. Imagine König standing there, brush in hand, the paper slightly damp, letting the water do its thing. I wonder if he was trying to capture a fleeting moment, the way light shifts on the sand or the mood of the sky just before a storm? The thin washes of color make me think he was after something ephemeral. Notice how the dark blues and purples weigh down on the top half of the painting, while the bottom feels lighter, almost hopeful. It reminds me of Turner, or maybe even some of the early Impressionists, trying to pin down the unpinnable. It's like he's saying, "This is what I saw, this is how I felt," but leaving it open for us to feel it too, in our own way. Painting, after all, is just one big conversation between artists, each of us trying to make sense of the world, one brushstroke at a time.