Studier af ornamenter og rammeprofiler 1919

Niels Larsen Stevns made these studies of ornaments and frame profiles with graphite on paper. Imagine him with his sketchbook, pencil in hand, recording all the visual information of the world around him. There's something incredibly intimate about sketchbooks. They capture the artist's thought process, the evolution of an idea. I can see Stevns, his eyes darting, absorbing details, trying to understand the structure and form of these architectural elements. Look how the lightness of the graphite gives a ghostly quality to these shapes. Are these ideas for bronze work? A frieze? It's as if he's having a conversation with the art of the past, riffing on historical forms and motifs. I’m always moved by the way artists build on each other's work, echoing and reinterpreting across time. It's a kind of beautiful collaboration.