Kochel Graveyard 1910

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting of a graveyard in Kochel, Germany, using oil on cardboard, and the palette is kind of unexpected, right? I mean, it's bright and sunny, not what you'd think of for a graveyard. There's this thick, gloppy yellow that dominates the foreground, like a field of sunshine – or maybe it's snow, reflecting the sun? It's hard to tell, and I like that. It’s not about perfectly describing something, but more about how the paint itself feels. The way he's dabbed on these little strokes of blue and yellow, it’s almost like he's building up a mosaic of color. Then you see the touches of red on top, that give a bit of drama to the whole scene. I think about someone like Marsden Hartley, who also used really intense color in his landscapes to pump up the emotional volume. These guys were onto something, understanding that painting is really about feeling, not just seeing.