Schetsen van een vrouw die haar haar wast 1892 - 1916

Rik Wouters made this sketch of a woman washing her hair, using ink on paper, and what strikes me is how immediate the mark-making is, like he’s really trying to catch a fleeting moment, to catch something about the way a body moves, the way light hits it, the way a domestic act can be so… intimate. Look at the ink, it's so fluid, almost watery in places, then thick and pooling in others, especially in the hair. It feels like he’s using the ink to almost sculpt the form, giving it weight and volume with just a few lines, a few gestures. It’s all about the process, about watching the ink bleed and flow, making decisions on the fly, embracing the accidental. See those thicker lines defining the curve of the back? The economy of it, the confidence! And then the frenzy of marks in the hair. It's a real dialogue between control and letting go. It's a bit like looking at something by Matisse, this interest in the everyday and how to render it in just a few deft strokes. For Wouters, art wasn’t about perfection, but about embracing the messy, beautiful reality of the world.