Studier af ægyptiske statuehoveder 1900 - 1905

Niels Larsen Stevns created these studies of Egyptian statue heads with graphite on paper. You know, the whole act of sketching is like a conversation. I think of the artist’s hand moving across the page, line after line, figuring out the shape, the light, the essence of these ancient sculptures. There's a real curiosity in these sketches, a desire to understand what's being looked at. I imagine Stevns in front of these statues, maybe even feeling a sense of connection to these ancient faces. The marks are tentative yet confident, capturing the form and volume of the heads with a kind of delicate precision. You can almost feel the coolness of the stone. It reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin, but with a different kind of searching quality. And that's what art's all about, right? That back-and-forth, that constant dialogue between artists, between eras, each one building on what came before.