Havenzicht 1927

Léon Spilliaert made this watercolour, Havenzicht, in 1926. You can really see the process in this piece. I love the way the blue washes float across the paper. The whole image shimmers with this blue tone, a kind of melancholic feeling pervades it. It’s not a heavy paint, it’s thin, washy, and lets the paper breathe. The artist’s hand is really evident in these marks. Take a look at the way the boats are drawn, they are built up of simple straight lines, and blocks of colour. There are areas of pure white which seem to glow against the blue. The whole composition is balanced by these vertical masts pushing upwards and the horizontal rhythm of the boats in the foreground. Spilliaert was influenced by artists like Edvard Munch, who also used colour to express intense feelings. He has a very distinctive style, and his work often portrays these kinds of desolate, lonely scenes. He doesn’t want to tell you what to think; instead, he leaves space for our own feelings to fill the frame.