Murnau with Locomotive

Between 1909 and 1911 Wassily Kandinsky, a central figure in 20th-century art, lived and worked in Murnau, a village in the Bavarian Alps. During this period the artist turned away from the direct depiction of nature in favor of a more abstract approach and came to believe in the suggestive power of color. In this painting of the winter landscape, however, Kandinsky restricted his palette to subtle whites, browns, pinks, and blues. The choice of subject matter and the way the paint is applied create a tension between stasis and movement in the canvas. In the foliage of the tree in the right foreground, Kandinsky applied oil paint in layers, giving the appearance of ephemeral watercolor washes. White paint mixes with color to create muted tones, such as the dirty brown smoke emitted from the small locomotive chugging across the frozen valley.