Man met een bril c. 1930

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this drawing of a man with glasses with a loose, searching line. It's like he's feeling out the form, not trying to nail it down but keep it open, alive. The paper has a warm tone to it, and the pencil lines are light. The overall effect is tentative, intimate. The head and beard are a tight scribble, whereas the barest lines suggest a body and arms, creating a contrast between a highly worked area and open space. That scribbled beard, to me, it’s like the engine room of the drawing, the source of energy from which everything else radiates. This feels like a drawing made in the spirit of someone like Giacometti, where the goal isn't likeness but a kind of vibrating presence. Art is, after all, just an ongoing conversation between artists, and between us and the world. There’s no one right way to see.