Ontwerpen, vermoedelijk voor posters 1928

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made these poster design sketches in graphite and ink. What I love about a sketch is that it shows you the artist thinking. It’s art as a process, pure and simple. On the left, we see faint pencil lines forming a grid, suggesting a method, but the composition overrides this. The drawing almost escapes its own structure. It is a preliminary sketch, and the lines are tentative, searching for the right form. The shapes are ill-defined; the artist seems to be coaxing them into existence. On the right, the ink wash, a fluid, tonal counterpoint to the linearity of the pencil on the left, adds depth. It's like the idea is starting to solidify. You can sense his vision becoming clearer, but the ambiguity is still there, hanging in the balance. It puts me in mind of Cy Twombly, not in terms of imagery, but in the sense of capturing a fleeting thought on paper. Ultimately, art is about that constant dialogue, riffing off what's come before while figuring out where we want to go next.