Composition (The Cow) 1917

Theo van Doesburg made this drawing, Composition (The Cow), with graphite on paper. I love the ghostliness of the image – it's like an X-ray of a cow! You can see all these floating geometric shapes and lines hovering in space. I imagine van Doesburg really looking, and then really reducing the animal down to its bare bones. What was he thinking as he drew this? Was he trying to show us the cow's essence, not its surface? I can feel him pushing and pulling, trying to get to the heart of things. The lines are so light and delicate, almost like he's scared of trapping the cow. But there’s clarity too, a need to simplify what he saw. This reminds me how artists are always wrestling with the world, trying to pin it down, but knowing they can't quite do it. It’s a really tender way to see a cow, or anything, really. There are so many ways of seeing!