Kerkramen c. 1905 - 1906

Here, in Rijksmuseum, is Lion Cachet's sketch, "Kerkramen," a delicate dance in graphite, probably on paper. It feels like the artist was thinking aloud with his pencil, mapping out dimensions and shapes for church windows, like a sculptor planning a grand form. I'm curious about these soft pencil lines, so tentative yet sure. I can imagine Cachet, head cocked to one side, muttering numbers, pausing, then sketching another arc. There’s something deeply intimate about seeing an artist’s process so bare, the arithmetic equations right alongside the curved forms. I wonder if the sum of the parts could ever truly add up to the feeling of the whole? In its modest way, this drawing shares kinship with the notebooks of Leonardo, or even the raw energy of a Cy Twombly doodle. Artists are always building on the past, reaching back, and sketching forward, in this ongoing, beautiful conversation. It’s a reminder that art-making is as much about thinking as it is about doing.