chiaroascuro, is our finest task." - Meaning and context.">
in a letter to artist de:Hans Thuar, 1913, from Lake Thun in Switzerland; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 145
“

The new discovery that I have made in painting is the following. There are chords of colors, let's say a certain red and green, which move, shimmer when you look at them. Now if you're looking at a tree in a landscape, you can either look at the tree, or at the landscape, but not both, because of the stereoscopic effect. Now, when you are painting something three-dimensional, the chromatic sound which shimmers is the three-dimensional effect of colour, and when you paint a landscape, and the green foliage shimmers a little with the blue sky showing through it, that happens because the green is on a different plane from the sky in nature too. Finding the space-shaping energies of colour, instead of contenting ourselves with a dead chiaroascuro, is our finest task.

— August Macke

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The new discovery that I have made in painting is the following. There are chords of colors, let's say a certain red and green, which move, shimmer when you look at them. Now if you're looking at a tree in a landscape, you can either look at the tree, or at the landscape, but not both, because of the stereoscopic effect. Now, when you are painting something three-dimensional, the chromatic sound which shimmers is the three-dimensional effect of colour, and when you paint a landscape, and the green foliage shimmers a little with the blue sky showing through it, that happens because the green is on a different plane from the sky in nature too. Finding the space-shaping energies of colour, instead of contenting ourselves with a dead chiaroascuro, is our finest task." in the context of "in a letter to artist de:Hans Thuar, 1913, from Lake Thun in Switzerland; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 145" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "August Macke" (Quotes of August Macke: sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of August Macke) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
August Macke

About August Macke

August Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist artist, who was well-known for introducing bright colors in the early stages of Expressionism. He was part of the art-group Der Blaue Reiter, which he joined through his friendship with Franz Marc, and knew Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Robert Delaunay; before his death in the First World War, he would leave behind hundreds of artworks, celebrated by the people around him.