Ontwerp voor ex libris van D.J. Goedkoop 1874 - 1945

This is a design for a bookplate by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet. It’s made with brush and black ink, with some kind of grey wash in places. Imagine him carefully plotting out those looping black lines, or maybe they came quickly, instinctively. I think he’s trying to build a kind of heraldic emblem. I can feel Cachet’s hand moving through the design. Each stroke is considered, yet there’s a fluidity that suggests he’s improvising, letting the image emerge. It reminds me of other graphic artists and painters who were thinking about surface design around that time. There’s this back-and-forth, give-and-take, that happens between artists across generations. They riff off each other, influencing and inspiring new directions. It’s all one big conversation.