Portret van een vrouw c. 1905

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this drawing, *Portret van een vrouw*, with a pencil on paper. I love this drawing because it reminds me that so much of artmaking is simply the act of trying to see. These lines aren’t precious, there’s no attempt to pretty things up, it’s all about the artist's hand trying to grasp the form of a woman’s face and hands. Look at the marks around the fingers, or near the woman’s temple; you can almost feel the artist searching for the right contour, willing the image into being through a flurry of activity. I really get a sense of this artist figuring things out as they go. It’s like a conversation between the artist, the model, and the paper. To me, this piece has a similar energy to some of Picasso’s more frenetic sketches, and that makes me think about how even a simple sketch can capture a whole world of looking, thinking, and feeling.