Figuurstudies 1896

Curator: These pencil and ink drawings by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet, titled “Figuurstudies,” were created around 1896 and are now held in the Rijksmuseum. It looks to be a page ripped from a sketchbook, with several figures outlined hastily, almost like memories flashing by. Editor: Hasty is the word. The energy feels scattered and anxious. Look at how thin the lines are, barely there. What sort of paper is this? It almost looks like newsprint – ephemeral. Curator: That flimsiness only heightens the sense of something fleeting and incomplete. But look closer, and you see how the figures repeat in different poses. To me, that's less about anxiety, more about exploration, experimentation with posture and perspective, seeking the symbolic significance of each arrangement. Editor: Symbolic? I see a workman’s notepad or receipts being sketched over while waiting on deliveries. The physical act of drawing as almost compulsive, a residue of downtime when one is not working and in transit from Point A to Point B. Notice how the paper has thinned by its center? It’s clearly had its usage and journey. Curator: I interpret those quick strokes as more deliberate, like he is imbuing ordinary bodies with symbolic significance through their posture and interactions. I am more impressed by his capture of transient feeling. Editor: What’s remarkable to me is how these lines feel utterly removed from grand artistic statements and almost diaristic by design. Consider how cheap this medium is, how the labor of marking up the image could have existed with a life, one of utility. These pages carry weight by design, but this only captures ideas that don’t want the commitment or the page. Curator: Perhaps we're seeing both at play. An almost desperate drive to give meaning, captured by everyday implements in such a casual form. We're looking into a mind in transit, one actively at work decoding the symbolic language of bodies around us. Editor: And aren't we so fortunate that someone saw the significance in the mundane in between these notes, capturing process and materials into art!