The running girl

From 1895—Evenepoel's early Paris years when he was twenty-three—'The Running Girl' demonstrates the young artist's interest in capturing figures in movement, a challenge that had preoccupied painters since the Impressionists made motion central to their project. A running girl is an inherently informal, even candid subject, the antithesis of the static studio portrait, and Evenepoel's choice to paint it signals his orientation toward the lived moment rather than the composed pose. His training in Moreau's atelier was simultaneously giving him technical foundations and the self-confidence to step outside academic conventions. The 1895 date makes this one of his earlier surviving oils, yet it already shows the directness that would characterize his mature work: the subject is taken on its own terms rather than idealized or allegorized. Antwerp's Royal Museum preserves this early canvas as evidence of the precocious observational gifts that colleagues in Moreau's studio recognized from Evenepoel's arrival in Paris.

Capturing movement in oil required Evenepoel to make rapid observational decisions—gestural brushwork to suggest momentum rather than careful finish. The figure likely shows abbreviated detail in extremities, with the main mass of the body painted more fully. Speed of execution visible in the brushwork supports the kinetic subject.