Notater vedr. fakkeltoget i Odense 1867 1930 - 1936

Here's a page from a notebook. It was made by Niels Larsen Stevns, who was born a few years before this, which looks like a sketch from 1867. It's currently hanging out at the SMK in Copenhagen. You know, looking at this, I can almost feel Stevns hunched over this notebook, trying to capture something fleeting – a parade? A demonstration? The way he crams the writing onto the page, like he's chasing after thoughts that are just out of reach. He's caught up in the making of it. I like to think about the way we learn from each other as artists, building on what came before. Here Stevns is working within the tradition of drawing from observation, but he’s also pushing it, making it his own through these quick, intuitive marks. The image is an act of notating, which can be as powerful as any finished painting. In the end, it’s not about what you see, but how you see it.