Skitser af dansende kvinde 1906

This page of sketches was made by Niels Larsen Stevns, probably in preparation for a larger painting. It's just a few quick lines on what looks like graph paper, but those lines, they’re full of movement! There's this incredible lightness to the drawing, a real sense of capturing a fleeting moment, like trying to catch a butterfly. The marks are so economical, just enough to suggest a body in motion. You can almost feel the energy of the dancer, the swirl of her dress, even though it’s all implied. It reminds me a bit of Degas's drawings of dancers. But where Degas is all about capturing the precision of ballet, Stevns seems more interested in the feeling of dance, the sheer joy of movement. I love how he doesn’t try to define every detail. It's like he's saying, "Here's the essence, you fill in the rest."