Visage de femme en plein air

Painted in 1910 during a period when Van Rysselberghe was gradually loosening his strict divisionist discipline, this outdoor female head study belongs to a series of plein-air canvases made on the Mediterranean coast and in the Provençal countryside. The work is now held at the Musée Léon-Dierx in Saint-Denis, Réunion — one of the oldest museums in the Southern Hemisphere — reflecting the wide dispersal of Belgian Post-Impressionist work through Francophone networks. By 1910 Van Rysselberghe was moving toward longer, more fluid brushstrokes that still retained chromatic intensity without the rigid geometry of his 1890s point-by-point method. Painting a face 'en plein air' was a deliberate challenge: natural light shifts constantly, forcing rapid decisions about tonal value and colour temperature. The title itself — 'Woman's face outdoors' — situates the painting conceptually within the Impressionist tradition of recording ephemeral natural light on skin, while the residual divisionist structure of the background gives the work a more deliberate architectural quality than pure Impressionism. The result is a synthesis that characterises Van Rysselberghe's mature style.

Oil on canvas with a transition between tightly controlled background dots and more freely handled flesh tones in the face and neck. Warm pinks and cool mauves are layered in short curved strokes to model the cheek and forehead. The background foliage is loosely indicated in greens and yellows that frame and illuminate the central head.