The House on the Corner 

Rik Wouters’s 'The House on the Corner' uses ink on paper to present an intimate, immediate impression of a commonplace urban scene. The quick, gestural lines create an atmosphere of transience and the everyday. The composition is dominated by the architectural form of the house, yet it is the linework that truly defines the piece. Wouters uses hatching and cross-hatching to create depth and shadow, giving volume to the building and surrounding foliage. The rain is depicted with long, diagonal strokes, integrating the house into a network of lines and shapes that suggest a world constantly in flux. The semiotic effect is powerful: the marks signify more than they depict, becoming signs for atmospheric conditions, spatial relations, and emotional states. The sketch destabilizes any fixed reading by refusing a clear, stable image of the house; instead, it offers a moment caught in time, a visual fragment that invites ongoing interpretation. Ultimately, the drawing is a study in how form and line can intersect to create a dynamic, shifting representation of reality, encapsulating the essence of a fleeting moment.