Corsicaanse vrouw op een ezel 1920

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this print of a Corsican woman on a donkey, but the date is unknown. Look at this landscape; it's like he’s carving away at the surface, reducing everything to these essential marks. There's a graphic quality to the print, a sense of immediacy, like he's wrestling with the image. The stark contrast between light and shadow gives it a dramatic feel. Notice the halo around the woman’s head - such a simple mark that gives the figure presence. I find myself wondering about the relationship between the foreground and background, how some of the buildings in the background seem to float above the mountains. This piece reminds me of the work of Emil Nolde, both artists unafraid to embrace a certain roughness in their mark-making. There’s a shared interest in exploring the emotional potential of the medium. Art is a conversation across time, and like any good conversation, it's full of surprises.