Silhouet (Vrouw in schommelstoel) 1913

Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita made this woodcut, Silhouet (Vrouw in schommelstoel), sometime in the early 20th century. It's an image of a woman in a rocking chair, but rendered as a black silhouette against a pale background. What strikes me is the contrast. The woman is a solid, dark mass, but the space around her is alive with these rhythmic lines suggesting light, shadow, and movement. Look at the way the floorboards are rendered, these sharp, almost frantic lines that create a sense of depth, of a real, lived-in space. And then there's the window, a blank rectangle, like a void. That void is really doing something, it is making me feel something. It reminds me of the woodcuts of Félix Vallotton, how he used stark contrasts and simplified forms to create these unsettling, psychologically charged scenes. This piece isn't just a portrait; it's a study in light and dark, presence and absence, revealing how much can be conveyed with so little.