Voeten onder een rok 1874 - 1945

This sketch of feet under a skirt was made by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet, and it feels as though it has just appeared, emerging out of thin air. Look at these lines, so tentative and searching. I can imagine the artist in a cafe, quickly capturing a glimpse of a woman as she passes by. Was he attracted by her gait, the way she moved? The lines create a sense of movement, a fleeting moment captured in time. It has that uncanny feeling of the everyday that you find in Degas, something so normal, but made special and strange on the page. The way the skirt is suggested with just a few strokes of the pencil allows the viewer to fill in the details. What color is it? What does it feel like? There is a mysterious quality about it, too. After all, the artist is only looking at the feet and hem of the skirt. The rest is left to our imaginations, and that's what I love about painting and drawing, the ambiguity and uncertainty of it all.