Paarden c. 1905

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this sketch of horses with confident, swift strokes of graphite on paper. I imagine the artist in the field, or a stable, quickly capturing the animals’ forms with an urgency, trying to get it down before they move. See how the charcoal almost scribbles out a dark patch of shadow on the belly of the central horse? You can practically feel Cachet bearing down on the page there, pressing hard to get the depth he sees. It reminds me a little of Franz Marc and the German Expressionists, especially in its energetic, abstracted quality. The legs are just these pure vertical marks, the bodies suggested more than described, all flowing together. What a lively sense of line and form. It feels like a conversation between what he is seeing and what he is feeling. It’s a fleeting impression, a moment caught in time.