Bluebonnets in Texas 1915

Robert Julian Onderdonk’s *Bluebonnets in Texas* is a painting awash with dreamy, almost monochromatic blues. Imagine Onderdonk standing there, squinting slightly, the Texas sun on his back as he laid down those first strokes. I feel for him, you know? Trying to capture that vastness, the way the landscape just keeps going and going. He must have mixed bucketloads of ultramarine and cobalt to even begin to get that sense of endless blue. See how the brushstrokes in the foreground are kind of choppy and thick, like he was really piling it on? I bet he was trying to give you a feel for the texture of the flowers. But then, as you look further back, everything gets softer, hazier. Painters are always looking at each other's work. Onderdonk must have been looking at all the impressionist landscapes on show at the time and thinking ‘yeah, I wanna do that, but make it Texan’ . He takes that fleeting glimpse and imbues it with something solid and enduring. It’s like he’s saying, ‘This is Texas, this is what it feels like to be here.’ It’s not just a picture; it's an invitation.