Wintery landscape 1926

Here’s a watercolour landscape made by Friedrich Mook, a painter born in 1888. Look at the way he's letting the colours bleed into each other - pale yellows and greens, and a wash of grey in the sky. I can imagine Mook outside with his easel, quickly trying to capture the scene before the light changes. I like the way the brushstrokes are so loose and free. You can almost feel the cold air and the dampness of the snow. It’s that classic problem of trying to make a convincing image of a three-dimensional world. How do you make something flat feel like it has depth? He’s used lighter and darker shades to model the snowy fields, making a few simple marks for the trees. Painters are always looking at each other’s work and figuring out how to solve pictorial problems. Mook is having a conversation with the landscape painters who came before him, building on their ideas and experimenting with his own vision. It's a reminder that painting is an ongoing process.