Ontwerp 1908

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this drawing, simply called 'Ontwerp', with pencil on paper. It looks like a blueprint, a structural design, for something that we can’t quite know. The texture of the paper is almost as visible as the lines, giving the whole piece a fragile, provisional feel, like a fleeting thought. It is all about lines, horizontal and vertical, that enclose an abstract form. But then, if you look down to the bottom right of the grid, you see a little decorative flourish, like a tiny flower, which seems to undermine the rigidity of the whole design. Cachet has a few other designs which feature lettering. I wonder if this is an idea for a page of calligraphy or a sign? Like Agnes Martin’s grids, this piece finds a kind of minimalist poetry in the repetition of simple forms. The beauty is in the imperfection, the subtle variations of the hand-drawn line.