Blank 1930 - 1936

Curator: We're looking at Niels Larsen Stevns' "Blank," created sometime between 1930 and 1936. It's a drawing, primarily using colored pencil and pastel on paper, and currently residing here at the SMK. What are your initial impressions? Editor: My first thought is the tentative nature of the lines, the softness. It's like a fleeting impression captured delicately. A visual whisper. Curator: The fragility is quite evident. Given that this piece uses primarily colored pencil and pastel, along with drawing on paper, one could say this piece may have served the role as an under drawing or perhaps as the planning stages for a painting on canvas, with its low cost production in mind and the materials readily available for a sketch . It exists due to material conditions that enabled this creation.. Editor: That's a compelling point. Thinking formally, the sparseness contributes significantly to the overall effect. It draws attention to the negative space. Is it absence, or a field of potential? It leaves the image deliberately unresolved, the barest trace of the artist's intentions. Curator: And what were those intentions? That is the question this artwork poses us, I imagine Stevns was perhaps experimenting for potential future compositions. Sketches like this allowed artists to experiment, learn about proportions and techniques, to save money by recycling paper when sketching. It would serve no meaning without its utility. Editor: Possibly, although focusing only on the utilitarian perhaps undersells it, while this composition is rather abstract for its time, one can interpret and appreciate the simplicity within the formal elements themselves. There's a real economy of line, each one considered, conveying a remarkable amount with very little. A less is more if you will, approach. Curator: I can't fully dismiss the aesthetic power of its spare lines, I find it fascinating how context shifts our perception of this "Blank." The economic constraints, cheap production values have informed the way the image itself appears. And also, its context that is an unfinished form. Editor: Perhaps both elements feed into each other. Thank you. Curator: Indeed. A satisfying duality.