Bouten was a highly individual artist. He had contacts with Herwarth Walden and his Sturm movement and left Holland in 1925 to travel all over Europe. In this period a new phase in his work began. "His colour suddenly became very light and thin. Compulsive violets and pink dominated his painting'. The subject touched on the absurd, often with a morbid undertone... In this period the also did some sculpturing equally absurd figures lightly painted, which almost more robust; remind us of the work of Harrie van Tusschenbroek. (op. cit. Venema)

See illustration