Ved Den hellige grav, notater 1933 - 1934

Niels Larsen Stevns made this drawing with ink on paper. Look at this frenetic energy! These marks are so scratchy and repetitive, you can just imagine him, maybe on the move, quickly capturing a scene. I wonder if he was traveling? Maybe in a carriage looking out the window. I love the shorthand, how he manages to suggest figures with just a few dark, scribbled lines. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, that sense of immediacy. The horizontal lines of the page almost mimic the movement of the carriage on the road. You can see how the ink bleeds a little into the paper, giving it a soft, blurry quality. It feels really personal, like a glimpse into his private world of mark-making and observation. Artists are always in dialogue, aren’t they? Sharing, stealing, and transforming ideas across time. I wonder who Stevns was looking at, and who will look at him and be inspired?