Canapé 1895 - 1935

This drawing, Canapé, by Léon Laroche, looks like it was made with pencil and watercolour, perhaps as a design for a piece of furniture. It’s this really delicate rendering, almost floating on the page, with these tiny little brushstrokes. I find myself getting lost in the details, like the tassels hanging off the edge of the canapé. Each one is carefully delineated with these fine lines, and together, they create this wonderful sense of texture. The colour palette is very muted, mostly creams, yellows, and lavenders, which gives the piece an overall feeling of lightness and elegance. It's like looking at a dream of a canapé, rather than the real thing. It reminds me a bit of some of David Hockney’s lithographs, where he uses colour to create a sense of space and light. Both Hockney and Laroche understand how to use the medium to create a mood. And that’s what art is all about, right? It’s about creating a space for feeling and for thinking, not just about depicting the world as it is, but as it could be.