Skitser af fisk 1905 - 1907

Niels Larsen Stevns made these fish sketches in pencil, probably in a small notebook. It's all about the lines here, right? How they dart and loop, capturing the essence of a fish in motion. Check out how Stevns uses the grid of the page itself. Those faint lines become part of the drawing, like the fish are swimming through some kind of geometric sea. Look at the way he's shaded the body of the lower fish with these tiny, frantic marks; it gives it weight, like it’s darting and alive. Stevns reminds me a little of Joan Miró, especially his drawings, where he’s chasing after a feeling, trying to pin down something elusive. It's this sense of open-ended exploration that makes both of them so compelling; they remind us that art is more about the questions than the answers.