Plantestudie 1906 - 1910

This tiny painting, Plantestudie, made by Niels Larsen Stevns, is a page torn straight from an artist's notebook. There’s a tension between the delicacy of the washes and the bold, assertive strokes of pen that define the form. I imagine Stevns, crouched low, intensely observing, capturing the plant's essence as the light shifted. Those looping lines—they almost quiver with energy, don't they? The way he’s layered those thin washes of color… that’s how you build depth, how you make something flat feel like it breathes. It reminds me of the way Cézanne constructed his landscapes, with each stroke a building block. It feels like a direct transcription of a moment, where Stevns is having a conversation with the plant itself, a dance between seeing and feeling. It's not just a study; it's alive.