Prøveblad med Evafigur 1903

Joakim Skovgaard made this tiny etching, Prøveblad med Evafigur, at the end of the nineteenth century. It’s a scene with Eva—that’s Eve, of Adam and Eve fame—out in the garden. I can just imagine Skovgaard with his etching needle, scratching into the metal, pulling the image out of his mind and onto the plate. Look at all those little lines, they remind me a bit of Seurat. They create the image, building up the shadows and the form of her body. She's standing in the garden, and the lines are looser and more scribbly around her, giving the scene a dreamy, unreal quality. It makes me think of Symbolist painters like Odilon Redon who were trying to capture feelings and ideas more than reality. It’s amazing how artists keep talking to each other across time. This little sketch feels like a question, a moment of seeing, and it keeps opening up possibilities. It is a conversation.