Legend (Adoration of the Angels in Green)

Since 1901 Hölzel had been arguing in print that a picture is first an arrangement of forms and masses on a flat surface. This canvas from 1908 tests that idea, because almost everyone reads it as a sacred scene. Figures bend toward what looks like a mother and child, pale rings glow around several heads, and one bowed figure carries a long pale shape like a wing. The title, Legend, with Adoration of the Angels in Green in brackets, points the same way.

The Belvedere's own text pushes back. It says Hölzel cared less about the Christian story than about a coherent composition, and that our culturally trained eye turns these shapes into worship. The ground and the great plane behind the figures are all tuned to green, with a yellower field in the upper corner and rust-brown robes as the main counterweight.