Limfjordslandskab (nær Løgstør?) 1864 - 1941

This quiet pencil drawing of a landscape, probably made in a sketchbook, is by the Danish artist Niels Larsen Stevns. It’s a super open and airy drawing. The marks are tentative, exploratory, not at all fixed. You can almost see Stevns thinking through the landscape, trying to find the right lines to capture the essence of the place. There’s a beautiful vulnerability in the way the lines are laid down, a real sense of looking. The texture of the paper itself is very present too, it feels like a collaborative effort between the artist and the material. The two vertical lines on the right page could be tree trunks, or maybe masts of boats. The horizontal lines are softer and more blurry, maybe they signify land or water. This reminds me of the way Guston would draw, thinking through forms, never trying to be too precise. Ultimately, the drawing is less about the landscape itself and more about the process of trying to capture it.