Ontwerp voor titelblad van Charivaria, 2e bundel 1874 - 1945

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this title page design for the second volume of Charivaria with pen and brush. It’s got this really graphic, blocky feel, kinda Art Deco meets something more ancient. I can just see Cachet, bent over his drawing board, really wrestling with the forms. There's so much ink! So he must have been working and reworking the design, trying to get that perfect balance between dark and light, text and image. The way the ink bleeds and pools in places gives it a kind of immediate, visceral quality, like the design is almost breathing on the page. It reminds me a little bit of some of the woodcut artists, like Munch, who were pushing the boundaries of printmaking at the time. It's like they're all in this big conversation about how to make images that really grab you by the eyeballs, you know? In my own work, I often find myself in dialogue with painters from the past. It’s like we’re all just riffing off each other, trying to find new ways to see the world.