Winterlandschaft
circa 1908
Time sluggishly moves over this hill. The
clouds form lazy blue shadows that sleepily mould themselves along the ground, melting
the thatched Toblerone-shaped roofs and the trees and bushes into a pool of
chilly air. The minuscule village almost appears to be a mirage, many of its
shapes taking on curious guises that, at a long and studied first glance,
remain somewhat indistinct. The thick haze that settles with the chill is felt
through the use of cool colours: mud-purple, yellowish- and pine-green, spotted
red and snow-blue, all relax with each other on a dream-like play area that
forms this Swiss landscape.
The absence of people strengthens the
composure of this piece. One is supposed to focus their eye on the
irregularities - on the hills on hills, on the humourously coiffed tree tops
and their squirming trunks - and to mindlessly run over every line and curve
without a precise destination, like following an incomplete map. Only subtly is
one reminded of human kind; Amiet purposely placed the triangular dwellings at
the centre of his composition, but by submerging them in a layer of shadow he
masked the crudity of their structures, thus blunting their sharp edges into
the sinuous ways of their environs. In a sense, Amiet buried this hint of
humanity into the ground; he tells one that it is there, but he veils its
presence with the one thing that has and always will dominate: Mother Nature.
