San Gimignano 1923

Hermann Lismann made this watercolor of San Gimignano. He was an artist born in 1878, so he might have been thinking of the past in relation to the present. I love the way the drawing is split between buildings and nature, with the towers of the city juxtaposed against the hillside, animals, and the sky. The artist is creating a soft rendering of the scene. The marks are not hard, the lines of the towers blend into the sky, and the sky itself is like a soft wash. I can imagine Hermann wanting to record the scene without harsh lines. I wonder if the artist was thinking of the picturesque, as a kind of scene where people and buildings are in harmony with nature? Like a vision of how the old and the new can come together. Artists always influence one another, which is why painting is a constantly evolving medium. It's not about capturing reality, it's about finding new ways of seeing.