Kompositionstudie med farvenotater 1912

This is J.A. Jerichau's 'Kompositionstudie med farvenotater,' a compositional study with color notes, made in pen and ink on paper. I see a person in a wide-brimmed hat standing near a table and another figure. It's all lines, quick and scratchy, and you can tell that Jerichau was just trying to get the idea down fast. It’s like he’s saying, “Okay, here’s the setup, now what colors go where?” Look at the writing scrawled across the image. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, who also combined writing and drawing in his paintings. Think about the physicality of making a work like this—the way the pen moves across the page, the artist stopping to jot down a note, and then starting again. Artists are always looking at each other’s work, building on what came before, like one long conversation happening across time and space. It's so human, so intuitive, and so open to interpretation.