Udkast til "Den barmhjertige Samaritaner" 1937 - 1938

Niels Larsen Stevns made this pencil sketch, Udkast til "Den barmhjertige Samaritaner", with quick, searching lines on a small page torn from a sketchbook. I imagine him hunched over this pad, maybe on a train, rapidly capturing a flurry of ideas as they came to him. You can almost feel the urgency in his marks, the way he’s wrestling with the composition, trying to find the right balance between form and emotion. I can feel that back-and-forth. There’s something vulnerable about seeing the artist’s thought process laid bare like this. The way he’s scratched and layered the lines, it’s like he's building the image from the ground up, each mark informing the next. This isn’t just a study; it’s a record of a painter thinking. It reminds me that we’re all just adding to this giant conversation that stretches back centuries. It all connects, doesn't it? Each of us trying to make sense of the world, one gesture at a time.