Kompositionsudkast til bibelsk scene. Flugten til Ægypten 1900 - 1904

This small sketch is an early idea for a biblical scene, The Flight to Egypt, by Niels Larsen Stevns. It's all tentative lines, like he's thinking out loud with a pencil. The drawing is so raw, so unpolished, you can almost feel Stevns' hand moving across the page. It’s more about the process than the product. Look at the donkey. It’s not really a donkey, more like a suggestion of one, but that's what’s so charming. It is like he is feeling the shapes, discovering them. These fleeting marks create a sense of movement, a feeling of urgency. The family appear to be rushing. He’s not trying to give us answers, but rather inviting us to contemplate the mysteries of faith and human experience, with him. Think of Marsden Hartley, who similarly embraces both the sacred and the naive in his painting, to leave space for the viewer to fill in the gaps.