James Ensor, Willem Paerels and Auguste Oleffe in an Antwerp Brothel after a Vernissage at Kunst van Heden 1913

Rik Wouters made this drawing, James Ensor, Willem Paerels and Auguste Oleffe in an Antwerp Brothel after a Vernissage at Kunst van Heden, with ink on paper. It’s all about the line here, isn't it? Quick, like a nervous impulse. I can almost see Wouters sketching away, trying to capture the fleeting energy of a night out. The ink is transparent, layered loosely, almost like he's chasing the scene rather than defining it. It's not about getting every detail right, but about the feeling of bodies in a room. Look at the way he draws the legs of the figure in the front. They cross over so that we read them as a mass, not as individual lines or shapes. This reminds me a little of Toulouse-Lautrec, doesn't it? Both artists were masters of capturing the demimonde with a kind of empathetic eye. There's something so human in the way they both depict these scenes, inviting us to consider the shared experiences of people, no matter their social standing. Ultimately, art is about these ongoing conversations across time, isn't it? A back-and-forth where ambiguity and multiple interpretations reign supreme.