Fauteuil en stoel 1895 - 1935

Here, we see Leon Laroche's "Fauteuil en stoel," a blueprint for a chair design, made with ink or watercolour. There's a lightness of touch, an elegance in the line that speaks to process, as though the artist is thinking through the drawing itself. Look at the colours. The palette is muted, almost pastel, giving a sense of history and perhaps even fragility to the pieces of furniture depicted. The lines are fine, precise, yet there's a certain warmth, which comes from the hand-drawn quality. Consider the shadow beneath the chairs, a delicate grey, suggesting depth, volume and weight. The vertical stripes in green are a perfect contrast to the yellow frame of the chairs. Laroche's chairs evoke the designs of Robert Adam, the 18th century British architect and designer, though Laroche's image is stripped of any clutter, allowing us to focus on the beauty of the chair as an object and a concept. Art's all about possibilities, about dreaming up new ways of seeing.