The Terrace of the Cafe, Bouvelard Sebastopol(Boulevard Sebastopol: la terrasse du ca c. 1927 - 1929

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac made this print of a Parisian cafe scene with ink on paper, and, for me, it’s all about the line, isn’t it? It is nervous, frenetic, a bit claustrophobic. The way the artist uses hatching to create depth and shadow is really interesting; the lines swarm across the architecture and sky. The artist is completely unafraid to go back over an area again and again, darkening it, layering more lines, like the café awning in the top right. It's like the ink is trying to capture the feeling of being caught in a crowd. That frenetic energy is infectious, you can sense that even the figures are drawn with a kind of restless, searching line. It reminds me of the etchings of Käthe Kollwitz, particularly in the way the artist conveys the weight of human experience through simple means. It's the kind of drawing that reminds us that art is a conversation, an ongoing dialogue between artists across time.