Zelfportret met zwarte ooglap 1915

Rik Wouters made this self-portrait in ink, with broad, confident strokes that capture his likeness with deceptive simplicity. It’s all about the process here; you can almost see him feeling his way around his own face, figuring out the essential lines. Look at the way he uses solid black for the cap and then breaks it up into scratchy lines for the face, like he's building up the image from the inside out. The texture is everything, from the smooth, dark areas to the almost frantic scribbles around the eye patch. It’s like he's not just showing us what he looks like, but also how he sees himself, maybe a bit roughed up, a little mysterious behind that patch. It reminds me of some of the German Expressionists, like Kirchner, who used a similar directness and intensity. But Wouters brings a certain lightness, a sense of play, even in this slightly melancholic self-portrait. Art is just a conversation between artists across time, each adding their own voice.