Aangemeerde boot aan een steiger c. 1930

Curator: Carel Adolph Lion Cachet's "Aangemeerde boot aan een steiger," a drawing from around 1930 housed here at the Rijksmuseum, offers an intimate glimpse into the artist's process. The medium is ink on paper. Editor: Intimate indeed! It feels like a visual whisper, almost voyeuristic. All those tentative lines – as if the artist barely touched the paper. A beautiful sort of uncertainty. Curator: Precisely. Notice how Cachet uses line weight to define form and space. The cross-hatching, particularly around the boat, creates volume. The geometric precision with which the scene is outlined brings a structural intensity to this simple harbor. Editor: Oh, "simple harbour" doesn't quite cut it for me. I read this as a space of pause, perhaps a quiet anticipation. A boat moored signifies journeys both taken and dreamt of, wouldn’t you say? Look at how it overshadows the light, this boat is ready to depart anytime, I can feel the call! Curator: An interesting perspective. One might equally posit that the scene’s deliberate lack of sentimentality focuses attention on the intrinsic formalism. The composition, see, guides our gaze from the elaborate lamppost up the pier to the hulking presence of the ship, organizing the image into three very clear spatial arrangements. Editor: Perhaps but I keep coming back to that light! And those gestural, almost frantic lines in the water... there's an energy here, barely contained within the economy of the medium. For me, formalism dances with a deep sensitivity that seems true of sketchbook work in general. It invites viewers in precisely with the perceived effortlessness and freedom. Curator: Indeed, though "freedom" implies a lack of constraint I don't see at all. What is striking to me about this work is how its formal restraint lends a sort of quiet austerity to what could otherwise have become a saccharine waterfront scene. Editor: It's interesting how we find such different experiences in the same piece. For you, restraint; for me, a barely suppressed longing! I guess that’s part of the beauty.