A cartoon reminds me of the way an idea is discovered and -- then works, I mean believed. I like the under notation which is in deep space, like wandering.The flat shape or color then comes forward and it is lassoed by the thickening line and-- bang on the surface as what is meant!
I think Van Gogh was not a very facile drawer. He really had to struggle and he at one point would scrawl a line around something he was trying to draw to make it "be".
Gauguin was doing something similar and it went back and forth and soon became part of the post impressionist style, of a line surrounding color. Actually maybe going back to a borrowing or validation in Medieval style or folk art.
Now Matisse and Picasso carried this line forward. Picasso definately locating it's beginning in Spanish Illumination of Medieval times. They exaggerated it and it got thicker, wider more aggressive.
I think it has to do with the idea of going back in the mind--into the forest of possibility and coming back with something-- drawing a line around it-- making something more definate.
Mondrian is a special case started out pretty traditional but with Van Gogh's line and kept exaggerating and exaggerating--till his line that meets a most modern surface as in later Lichtenstein.
