Ontwerpen voor stoelen 1908

These "Ontwerpen voor stoelen", or Designs for Chairs, were sketched by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet, and they live here at the Rijksmuseum. Lion Cachet has given us his workings-out, the bones of an idea caught on paper. I love these more provisional things - not the finished product but the prelude to a thing. It gives you that wonderful feeling of being on the inside. What was he thinking as he drew these lines? Perhaps he imagined how different woods might meet, how a person might sit, how a room might feel with this chair in it. The lines are delicate, almost tentative, like he's feeling his way through space. This reminds me, weirdly, of some of the early modernists who worked across disciplines. What is painting other than a type of design? Or design a kind of painting? I think of Anni Albers weaving at the Bauhaus, each thread a painted line. Art is ultimately one big conversation, where ideas bounce around, inspiring each other across time.