Ontwerpen voor stoelen en een kast c. 1903 - 1904

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this graphite drawing, Ontwerpen voor stoelen en een kast, on paper, and it’s currently in the Rijksmuseum. You know, there's something really intimate about seeing an artist's preliminary sketches; it's like catching them in the middle of a thought. In this study, Cachet works out designs for chairs and a cabinet. Look at the almost nervous energy of the marks and lines – these aren’t perfect renderings; they’re more like a visual brainstorm. I am drawn to how the lines intersect and overlap, creating depth but also a sense of the artist working through ideas. It's not so much about the precise depiction of furniture as it is about the process of design. Those confident marks slicing down the composition are particularly intriguing. Were they a mistake? Or did the artist consider them vital to the overall composition? There's a sense of freedom here, a willingness to let the hand move and the lines accumulate, a little like Matisse, but in monochrome. It makes you think about how much art is really just about the conversation an artist has with a piece of paper.