Woman by the Sea 1909

Léon Spilliaert made this painting of a woman by the sea, and it feels like the whole thing emerged out of mist and shadow. Look at how the horizontality of the sea meets the verticality of the woman. I imagine the artist, Spilliaert, outside in the cold, squinting, trying to capture the grey light on the water. The paint is thin, almost like a wash, but it gives a real feeling of the damp air and vastness of the sea. That dark dress—it’s like a solid block, anchoring the whole composition. It’s so bold and simple. Painters have always looked at other painters to get ideas. You can see how someone like Edward Hopper might have looked at Spilliaert, but where Hopper is more precise, Spilliaert is full of atmosphere and feeling. The way he embraces ambiguity and uncertainty gives his work a unique, haunting quality. It's like he’s inviting us to wander in and bring our own stories to the scene.