Buffetkast 1895 - 1935

This ‘Buffetkast’ by Léon Laroche is an architectural drawing, rendered with precise lines and monochromatic tones. I am really thinking about Léon at his drawing table, perhaps hunched over his work with a set of sharp pencils, carefully plotting out the proportions and details of this grand buffetkast. This isn’t a painting but I can see the lines building up, one by one, like layering in paint. Look closely, you can see the cross-hatching that gives form to the object. The symmetry and ornamentation give the image a quiet sense of majesty and grandeur. I wonder what Léon was thinking as he drew? Was he daydreaming about the feasts and gatherings that would take place around this buffetkast? Or was he simply focused on the technical challenge of capturing its essence on paper? Perhaps there was a lot of measuring with rulers involved. Perhaps that is the art within the art! Artists are always borrowing and riffing off one another’s ideas. Every artist is in conversation with art history, and with other makers, dead or alive! I can just imagine Léon nodding in agreement.