Joanna Lion Cachet-Cordes c. 1935 - 1940

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this sketch of Joanna Lion Cachet-Cordes, using what looks like pencil or charcoal, capturing a moment in time on paper. The immediacy of the medium and the directness of the line is what grabs me here; you can almost see the artist thinking and feeling through each stroke. Look at how the frantic scribbles above her head contrast with the calmer, more deliberate lines defining her face. The weight of the line varies, creating depth and shadow with so little, just a shifting pressure on the page. It's like we're peering into the artist's mind as he works, witnessing the translation of a three-dimensional being into a two-dimensional form. There's a raw honesty to it, a vulnerability, that reminds me of some of the rapid figure drawings by Egon Schiele. Both seem to celebrate the art-making process as much as the subject.