Jongens trekken aan een handkar after 1947

Eddy de Smet made this ink and watercolour drawing called 'Jongens trekken aan een handkar'. I’m struck by the economy of line and colour, where the artist doesn't labour over details but lets the ink line do the talking, confident and playful. The washes of colour feel fresh and immediate, like the kind you get when you're just messing around in the studio. Look at the way the tree is formed with all those marks, it’s like a tangle of thoughts, a whole world of marks compressed together in this one area of the picture. The slabs of turquoise seem to float across the ground, like stepping stones in a child’s imagination. All those different textures and rhythms – it's a whole choreography of looking, and you can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page. This work reminds me of Quentin Blake, in the way it manages to capture the joyful anarchy of children at play. It celebrates the art of not being too serious, reminding us that sometimes the most interesting things happen when we loosen our grip and let the work lead us where it wants to go.