Boitsfort, het hek van het park 1892 - 1916

Rik Wouters made this watercolour, Boitsfort, het hek van het park, and it's a great example of how a painting can be a record of seeing. Look how each mark is a kind of breath. The paint is so light, so transparent, you can almost see through it, like looking through colored glass. The way he's built up the image from simple brushstrokes makes me think of Cezanne, but there's also a freedom here. I especially love the purple-ish cloud near the bottom right – it’s like a little explosion of color. It doesn't seem to sit in one place, instead it drifts into the rest of the painting. What Wouters is doing in this piece reminds me of Dufy, each capturing the world as a series of spontaneous and immediate experiences. Neither are trying to capture anything definitive, instead creating a space for ambiguity.