Vissen c. 1930

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this drawing of fish, simply called Vissen, with ink on paper, but no one knows when. The confidence of line suggests that Cachet had observed and drawn these creatures many times, and the multiple studies on one page implies that art making, for him, was a process. The texture of the paper is smooth, and the ink sits delicately on the surface. There’s no attempt to conceal the hand of the artist; every line is visible, and the sketchy quality reveals the artist’s thought process, like a map of his eye’s journey. Look at the eye of the fish at the bottom of the page, the way the concentric circles emphasize its gaze. Cachet's drawings remind me of Picasso’s studies, or even the quick, almost frantic energy of Cy Twombly. Like all art, Vissen participates in an ongoing conversation about how we see and represent the world around us. It invites us to embrace the beauty of imperfection and to find meaning in the simplest of forms.