Staande naakte vrouw 1929

This is Simon Moulijn’s ‘Standing Nude Woman,’ at the Rijksmuseum. I reckon he made it with charcoal or graphite, something smudgy and raw. Look how the figure emerges softly from the dark ground. There’s something vulnerable, even a bit sad, in her posture. She's standing in a forest but she's not part of the scene. She stands separate from her surroundings. I’m thinking about the artist’s hand as he worked. I wonder if the darkness came first? Whether he worked back into it, scraping away the marks to let the light emerge? The process mirrors a slow revelation, like a memory surfacing from the depths of the unconscious. The art of seeing is ever-evolving, and artists like Moulijn are part of this ongoing conversation. Their works invite us to linger, to reflect, and to find meaning in the quiet, uncertain spaces of art.