Rots aan het water 1919

Léon Spilliaert’s drawing, Rocks on the Water, is made with colored pencils. Look at the grainy buildup of color and imagine him layering strokes, building the image from a mass of marks, with the softest touch, and then adding some more on top. I love how the drawing teeters on the edge of legibility, as it’s always about to dissolve back into abstraction. You know, I bet he was thinking about light. You can see the colors have been blended, creating an atmospheric perspective. It's this soft, hazy glow that seems to swallow the rocks, the water, and the lonely figure in the distance. It’s this glow that gives the drawing its emotional weight. It reminds me of Symbolist artists who were similarly invested in the power of suggestion. The drawing invites us to consider the many ways in which artists can be in conversation with each other, reaching across time and space to inspire creativity and dialogue through the act of painting itself.