View of Lake Léman at Nyon 1875

Curator: Here, we have Johan Barthold Jongkind's "View of Lake Léman at Nyon," painted in 1875. It's currently held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The scene shimmers, doesn’t it? Editor: It does! The whole atmosphere has this silvery, hazy quality. Almost dreamlike, but also so serene and composed. Like a collective, quiet memory. Curator: That feeling you're picking up is classic Jongkind—capturing light and atmosphere with those fluid brushstrokes. This piece, like many of his works, was done *en plein air*, meaning he painted it outdoors, right in front of the lake. This marked a break towards what would become impressionism. Editor: The choice to paint outside speaks to democratization; Jongkind literally took the tools of fine art into the broader public, to the ‘commons’. Lake Geneva has, of course, a longer political history, including figures like Rousseau and Byron and their engagements with notions of liberty. Curator: Yes! The loose brushwork gives you the impression of movement—the clouds scudding across the sky, the gentle ripples on the lake, everything is in a state of becoming. It is interesting when compared with more traditional, academic landscapes. Editor: This fluidity certainly softens boundaries. While the architecture suggests a specific time and place, I am compelled by the blurring between water and sky that makes that location universal; these bodies of water are connected globally. It makes me think about Switzerland’s relationship with neutrality and international law—water’s inherent mutability seems to suit this dynamic. Curator: And Jongkind seems so interested in that threshold! The composition is almost perfectly split between sky, town and lake; the eye dances. Editor: Yes, a dance but also a conversation! It would be easy to reduce this just to aesthetic harmony, but perhaps it prompts us to consider social and ecological relations: how we shape the land and are shaped by it in turn. Curator: It certainly gives a lot to ponder, especially the light reflecting and connecting the elements of the image in an endless game of perception. It’s just beautifully calming. Editor: It’s a landscape that is both intimate and monumental. It allows a quiet meditation on larger forces – ones both natural and societal.