Berg 1915

Lodewijk Schelfhout’s print of a mountain, called ‘Berg’ in Dutch, pictures a city perched at the top of a mountain, rendered in shades of grey. I can imagine Schelfhout, deeply invested in depicting an imagined place, experimenting with tone to try to create a magical space. The road winding up the mountain has such a great rhythm and leads you in and up; the repetition of those curves feels really important to the overall image. It reminds me a little of Piranesi’s etchings of imaginary prisons, or even some of M.C. Escher’s impossible architectural fantasies, though Schelfhout’s print feels less anxiety-inducing than either of those artists. I bet Schelfhout was really thinking about light when he made this; there’s so much dark and light playing off each other, and that's something that painters still grapple with today. Artists working now are in a constant conversation with the art of the past, experimenting and building on ideas, so we can push painting forward in exciting ways!