Zwei Weibliche Akte Am Baum 1925

Otto Mueller made this painting, Zwei Weibliche Akte Am Baum, using what looks like tempera on canvas. Look how he’s making shapes that are almost there, but not quite, like ghosts in the woods. The colors are muted, like they’ve been sitting in the sun too long. There’s this yellow ochre for the figures, which is set against a gray-brown that bleeds into everything, blurring the edges. I love how the bodies have outlines that don't quite meet, as though they are hiding or emerging from the darkness. The dark strokes of the grass and the branches of the trees become like bold and confident marks. Look at the tree trunk behind the standing figure. It's not really a tree, it’s just a dark shape, but it suggests the idea of a tree. It’s like Mueller is saying, “Here’s what a tree feels like, not what it looks like.” He was part of Die Brücke, a German Expressionist group, and you can feel that search for raw, emotional expression here. It reminds me a little bit of Paula Modersohn-Becker, another German artist who was also trying to find a new way to paint the body and the world around her. It’s all about feeling, not just seeing.