Bladeren c. 1895 - 1900

Editor: We’re looking at "Bladeren," or "Leaves," a drawing from around 1895-1900 by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet. It’s a simple pencil drawing, seemingly just leaves sketched on paper. The first thing that strikes me is how delicate and ephemeral it feels, almost like the leaves could float right off the page. What captures your attention most when you look at it? Curator: Ah, yes! Delicate is perfect. I see a dance between capturing something fleeting and the artist’s own presence – those firm, almost insistent pencil strokes behind the lightness of the leaves. There's an intentionality there. It's a bit like that feeling of desperately trying to hold onto a memory, isn't it? Trying to capture it perfectly, knowing all along it's already changed. Does the composition suggest anything else to you? Editor: I suppose it's less a botanical study and more an impression, a feeling of leaves, captured in charcoal...almost like a memory. It has that sort of impressionist feel, doesn't it? Did the artist create it outdoors, as a pure observation? Curator: Perhaps, or from memory? Consider the title – “Leaves.” It’s simple, unadorned. Not ‘Leaf Studies’, not ‘Botanical Specimen’. Lion Cachet invites us not to dissect, but to simply… be with leaves. Maybe even contemplate their fading – those end-of-the-century anxieties and romantic melancholy! Do you feel any echoes of that looking at the sketch? Editor: That's interesting! I was so focused on the lightness of the drawing. Thinking about it in context...makes it feel more complex and introspective, almost philosophical, now that you say it! Curator: Precisely! It's a dance, isn't it? An interplay between technique, observation, and that little whisper of the soul the artist puts on paper. These 'simple' sketches hold whole worlds sometimes. Editor: Well, I'll never look at a quick sketch the same way again!