Meisjes buiten spelend met een pop after 1921

Henriëtte de Vries made this etching of girls playing outside with a doll in 1921. Look at the lines; they build form, yes, but they're also kind of scribbly and free. It makes me think about how we learn to see, always negotiating between detail and the bigger picture. The marks feel immediate, like she's capturing a fleeting moment. See how the dresses are built up with so many short strokes, giving them volume but also movement, like they're caught in a breeze? There’s a real sense of the physical world rendered through the directness of the artist's hand. I keep getting drawn to the texture of the girl's dress on the right; it has so much character, it feels like a quick sketch, but it says so much. It feels like a cousin of Paula Modersohn-Becker's work, you know? That same interest in everyday life, the same direct approach. It’s like she's inviting us to see the world not as a fixed image, but as a constant process of becoming.