Pieter von Hess

Pieter von Hess kept a crumpled sketchbook in his coat and filled it with charging horses before the ink could dry. He once dashed off a watercolor of an armored rider in under an hour, now titled Armed horseman, possibly Russian, so he could catch the way sunlight hit the metal before the clouds shifted. Hunt down that tiny sheet at the Pinakothek in Munich and you’ll see how a single sheet can feel like a whole battlefield, all in the time it takes to finish a cup of coffee.