"Svævende kvinder". Studieblad efter relieffer i Borobudur, Java. 1921

Svend Rathsack made this pencil sketch of floating women after reliefs in Borobudur, Java. I'm trying to imagine what it was like for Rathsack, copying ancient Javanese carvings, channeling them through his own hand. There’s a gentle, searching quality to the lines, as he coaxes the forms onto the page. They’re floating, like it says in the title, perched on clouds? Waves? The edges of their bodies are smudgy and vague, unfinished. The whole image feels open and permeable. I bet Rathsack felt a kinship with the original artists, even across centuries and cultures. Like they were all part of one big conversation, copying and reinterpreting the world around them. That’s what drawing is, after all, a way of thinking through feeling.