Plantestudie 1930 - 1936

Niels Larsen Stevns made this Plant Study sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century, using pencil on paper. You can really feel the artist working things out through a mass of scribbled marks and lines. I imagine Stevns sitting outside with a sketchbook, trying to capture the essence of this unruly plant. It's not about botanical accuracy, but about the feeling of growth and wildness. There’s a patch of dense hatching at the base and I just want to dive in there and figure out the structure of the thing. It reminds me of Philip Guston, who also used simple marks to convey a sense of volume and weight. The way the lines loop and curl suggests movement. You can see the artist thinking through the form, exploring different possibilities with each stroke. It’s like he’s in conversation with the plant, trying to understand its unique character. It speaks to this idea of a painter as someone who sees the world with fresh eyes, always searching for new ways to represent what they see and experience.