Waldsee 1919

Otto Mueller made this painting, Waldsee, with distemper on canvas. The almost childlike simplicity of the image is striking, isn’t it? Look closely and you can see a surface built up of small, chalky marks that create a deliberately crude texture. It’s as if the image has been dragged from a dream, and the materiality reflects that. The grass is evoked with a flurry of green strokes, like a hasty scribble of colour. And the trees? They're upright and still, but rendered with a mix of grey and blue, as if unsure of their place in this world. The tonal range of the piece is limited, with a palette restricted to muted greens, greys, and blues, lending the whole image a hushed, melancholic quality. Mueller was associated with Die Brücke, and you can see echoes of Kirchner’s interest in Primitivism here. But unlike Kirchner’s jagged angst, this feels more tender, like a memory half-forgotten. It's an exploration, not a statement, and maybe that's what makes it so compelling.