Once I saw a reproduction of Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I. It was in my early childhood. Back then the beauty of the monochrome image became clearly visible to me. In that fateful moment I gained access to the understanding that through this way of drawing an artist can express a particular state, one that later acquired the features of a separate art form which, in my view, is grasped primarily through the mind. While still a very small child, I looked at Melencolia and seemed to understand that what Dürer wanted to convey could be expressed in only one way: through the absence of colour. Black-and-white drawing became a melancholic art for me. It immerses you in a state in which emotions and feelings gradually fade and thoughts become clearer. You seem to detach yourself from everything trivial, and your view of the world becomes impartial. Time stops and the world freezes. Colours gradually dim and disappear. At some point the mental structure of the world is laid bare. There are no feelings or emotions in it. There are only the outlines of objects and the shadows that point to them. It is a kind of skeleton of the world, onto which patches of colour are later fixed. And there is only one feeling towards this whole performance: enchantment with the line.