Early Spring Landscape with Meandering Stream

Throughout his career, Alten was not afraid to incorporate strong color into his work. They could be seen in works depicting bright vibrant Spanish beach scenes to the rolling green fields that surrounded his Grand Rapids home. In a 1913 interview with the Grand Rapids Herald, Alten described his relationship with color as something that he felt deeply:

“Color is like a beautiful dream. You can see it, you can understand it, you know why such and such a combination is necessary, it is the only possible combination to produce a given effect. But you cannot express what that is in words. You feel it, that is all. It is like a dream. Or it is like a musical composition”