Limfjordslandskab (nær Løgstør?) 1864 - 1941

This landscape sketch near Løgstør was made by Niels Larsen Stevns, though we don’t know when. It looks like a quick impression in pencil, probably done in a sketchbook. The slightly textured paper gives me a sense of intimacy, as if I’m looking over the artist's shoulder. There's this delicate pencil line that meanders down the page, suggesting a tree or some kind of vertical form. It's so tentative, not really defined, just a suggestion of something. The other lines are straighter and more definite. It reminds me of a Cy Twombly sketch. Twombly also had this way of capturing the essence of a thing with such simplicity. Both Stevns and Twombly show us how the beauty of art lies in its capacity for ambiguity and the openness of it all.