Jongen met kat bij een deur 1887 - 1916

Willem Pothast made this pen drawing of a boy and cat in front of a door, but we don't know exactly when. I can imagine him sitting there, the pen in his hand scratching away, thinking about how to make the door look like a real door, the leaves look like they're actually hanging, and what about that cat? Does it really look like a cat? I know this struggle well. The surface is built up from a ton of tiny little lines, like he's building up a whole world from scratch. He's creating atmosphere, mystery even, with the simplest of means. I can feel his sensitivity. It is like he is whispering a little secret about a world just beyond our reach. There is such pleasure to be found in looking, in the simple act of translation, from what we see to what we make. I see Pothast wrestling with this, trying to capture something fleeting, something true.