Landschap met bomen op voorplan 1925

Léon Spilliaert made this landscape painting with trees on the foreground, probably in watercolor, in 1925. The colours are so soft, like a memory fading into the paper. There is something very satisfying about how the marks accumulate. Each tiny dot of colour adds up to so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a painstaking process, I’m sure, but it feels so light and free. Look at how the branches reach up into the sky. They are like veins or arteries, connecting the earth to the heavens. The leaves are little jewels scattered across the branches, catching the light and sparkling. The lone Cypress tree in the background feels so vulnerable and isolated. I think of Agnes Martin when I look at this work, or maybe even some of those early Symbolists. It's like they are all having a conversation across time and space.