Apollo fra Veji 1911

Marie Henriques made this watercolour painting of Apollo, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It's a copy of a classical sculpture, rendered with such loose and watery washes. You can really sense the process, the way the pigment separates and blooms on the page, creating these soft, blurred edges. The colours are muted, mostly browns and blues, but there's this subtle glow, a luminosity that makes the sculpture feel almost alive. Look at the way she's handled the drapery, those delicate folds cascading down Apollo’s body. It’s as if Henriques is trying to capture not just the form, but the very essence of the sculpture. There is a dialogue with abstraction, the image seems to be dissolving into the ground, the figure emerging from a haze of colour. Reminds me of the way Manet would paint figures, trying to catch a fleeting impression rather than a perfect likeness. Like Manet, Henriques seems to be interested in the surface of things, in the way light and shadow play across the form. Art isn't about answers, it's about questions and about seeing the world in new and unexpected ways.