Udkast til "Kristus velsigner de små børn" 1937 - 1938

This is a sketch by Niels Larsen Stevns, a preparatory drawing for a painting with a religious subject. The image is made with rapid, simple strokes. You can almost feel the artist thinking with the pen, trying out different arrangements of figures, searching for the right composition. The figures are suggested by simple shapes and lines, their forms not yet solidified, but full of potential. I like this approach to image making, this idea of process, of not knowing exactly where you are going with an image, only allowing the image to unfold. It makes me think of Guston, and how his crude forms somehow contain multitudes, just like these ones. The quick, almost childlike quality of the marks only adds to their power. It’s as if the artist is trying to capture something essential, something beyond the surface appearance of things. Art at its best is an ongoing conversation.