If you haven’t figured it out yet, Countryside Near Paris is exactly what the title suggests, even if it doesn’t look like it at first glance.

Don’t worry, you’re not drunk. Well, you might be. But that’s none of my business, and it has nothing to do with why this painting is so squiggly, so you don’t have to worry. Gabriele Münter ’s Countryside Near Paris is one of those paintings that makes you squint your eyes to get the whole picture. It makes you put in a little extra work, but it’s okay because you know you feel kinda cool when you do it and things get clearer. 

While it might seem like a no-brainer to you that it was painted in the countryside near Paris, it’s not uncommon for paintings to be worked on in a studio, manifested off of memory and improvisation. Münter said to hell with that, though, and she did this all in person, "en plein air," which is the French expression of “in the open air." This means Münter was out there getting it on the canvas in real time. We have no choice but to stan. 

Münter was also known for painting rather quickly. She could finish a piece in a day, or even an afternoon, making us all feel inadequate when it takes us that much time just to muster up the energy to attempt to do something creative. When you take her speed into consideration, and couple it with the fact that this is a plein-air painting, it starts to make sense why the it looks the way that it looks. Painting something outside only gives you a limited amount of time to work with, as the light is constantly changing. If you want to stay in the moment and paint what is rather than what was, you’ve gotta be quick, and Gabriele used that to her advantage. 

She painted with thick (or thicc as the kids say) swathes of paint that really gives the piece a tactile element. I can imagine this technique also made it easier for her to get it done so quickly. No wasting time on tiny brushstrokes for small details, and with all that paint on the canvas, you don’t have to keep going back to the palette for more. It’s all right there waiting for you.

The quickness (and the thiccness) do the painting a lot of favors. Because she used these styles, Countryside Near Paris feels like it’s moving. The wind looks real, and the blending of the trees and the road makes it feel like they're swaying heavily within the gusts.

Münter painted this piece in 1907 during an extended stay in the area with teacher turned romantic partner Wassily Kandinsky. I guess teachers have always dated their students and it’s not a scandalous new thing. Despite the odd dynamic, Kandinsky taught Gabriele a lot of what she knew about painting landscapes, as before she painted more naturalistic, less abstracted scenes. Countryside Near Paris is one of her earliest attempts to capture the feeling of a landscape, rather than rendering it in perfect detail.