Kopi af den kronede Maria med Barnet 1902 - 1905

This pencil sketch, Kopi af den kronede Maria med Barnet, was made by Niels Larsen Stevns, we don't know when exactly, and it's a copy of the crowned Virgin Mary with Child. What strikes me is the urgency of the lines, how they swarm and cluster, particularly in the drapery of Mary's robes. It's like the artist is trying to capture something fleeting, a sense of volume and form with minimal means. The texture of the paper peeks through, lending a rawness to the image. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page, searching for the right contours. Look at the way the halos are rendered, just simple circles, and the angels sketched in with the barest of lines. There's a beautiful economy to it all, a sense of paring down to the essential elements. Stevns reminds me a bit of someone like Emil Nolde, in his interest in religious subjects and his expressive use of line. But where Nolde goes for bold color, Stevns sticks to the humble pencil, finding a different kind of power in its simplicity. This piece celebrates the beauty of the unfinished, the potential that lies in the first marks on the page.