Skitser af flyvende fugle 1864 - 1941

This page of sketches of flying birds was made by Niels Larsen Stevns sometime in his life with graphite on paper. I'm looking at these small, fleeting lines and thinking about the process of catching a bird in flight, even on paper. There’s a real sense of movement here; you can see the artist trying to capture the essence of these birds, not just their static form. It’s like he's trying to understand their motion, the way they cut through the air. Look at the marks - thin, quick, searching - how he uses the graphite to suggest the lightness and freedom of flight. It's amazing how a few simple lines can evoke such a sense of life. I think of artists like Leonardo da Vinci, who also studied birds to understand the mechanics of flight, that this is part of an ongoing conversation about how we perceive and represent the natural world. What do you think?