Cemetery and rectory in Kochel 1909

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting, Cemetery and rectory in Kochel, using oil on board, and it feels like a really free response to a specific place, somewhere real. The paint is applied so directly, like he’s trying to catch a feeling as much as a view. The colours are really singing, aren’t they? Look how he uses blues and yellows to build form, creating a scene that almost vibrates with energy. There's this one thick stroke of bright blue that cuts through the foreground, it’s so confident and quick, really defining the edge of what I guess is either a path or a stream. You can almost feel the cold, the wetness, and see the way the light bounces off the snow. Thinking about Kandinsky’s later move into abstraction, you can see him here at this point where he's on the cusp. You know, like, it’s not quite a landscape, and it's not not a landscape. You can feel the beginnings of something totally new. Like with Munch, he’s less interested in pure representation and more in what painting can do. It becomes its own reason for being.