Drei Figuren in Landschaft 1920

Adolf Hölzel made this pastel drawing, Drei Figuren in Landschaft, sometime in the early 20th century. Look at the powdery softness of the pastel, a sort of dreamy veil he’s cast over everything. I imagine him gently laying down these strokes, building up the image bit by bit. You can feel the artist really pushing and pulling at representation. Those figures feel like they’re emerging from the landscape, or maybe dissolving back into it. It makes me think about the push and pull all painters feel between seeing and knowing, between the real and the abstract. It’s like he’s asking: how do we make sense of the world around us? And how do we capture that on a two-dimensional surface? That dark triangle in the background… is it a mountain, a shadow, or just a shape? I think Hölzel is showing us that it can be all of those things at once. That's the fun of painting, right? Trying to nail something down, and then letting it go.