Kompositionsudkast til Blichers novelle "Vinhandleren og Herremanden", p. 208 - Afskeden ved Sæbygård, kvadreret 1932 - 1935

Niels Larsen Stevns made this drawing as a compositional sketch for a novel by Blicher. It's all furious charcoal on graph paper. I love that you can see the grid, that the artist is using it and ignoring it at the same time. The lines and numbers seem to ground the abstraction a little, and also to give it a sense of humor. Look at the figure in the middle, caught in this desperate run, they’re all sharp angles and frenetic energy. What was Stevns thinking as he captured the essence of movement? The marks are so economical, as if he’s racing against time, or chasing an idea, trying to capture the feeling of a story. Maybe he had the same feeling as that character running away. Artists are always looking at each other’s work across time, riffing on ideas, fueling each other. Painting’s like that, always in process, never truly finished.