Notater om ramme- og blændrammemål 1864 - 1941

Editor: This is "Notater om ramme- og blændrammemål" – roughly translated to "Notes on frame and stretcher dimensions" – created sometime between 1864 and 1941 by Niels Larsen Stevns. It’s a mixed-media piece, ink, pencil, colored pencil, on paper. Honestly, it looks like someone's notebook page, filled with scribbled notes and calculations. Kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking. What do you make of this jumble, what thoughts does this work spark for you? Curator: Oh, this page vibrates with creative energy, doesn't it? It's so immediate, so *human*. To me, it’s not a jumble, but a secret language revealed. Can you imagine Stevns hunched over this very page, wrestling with proportions and perspective? He was searching for the sweet spot, the hidden ratio that brings harmony to the canvas, right? Editor: Hmm, I suppose. It still seems so… functional? Like a grocery list instead of high art. Curator: But isn’t there a strange beauty in that functionality? He transformed an everyday need – stretching a canvas – into a kind of visual poem, if you will. The act of trying to measure, I think, becomes a form of creative investigation, itself. What else do you notice? Editor: Well, all the numbers… maybe the precision he was striving for? It’s fascinating to think about all of this, it's like looking into his mind. Curator: Exactly! We're not just seeing dimensions, we're glimpsing the artist's process. The struggle to find the right frame, quite literally, I daresay! So, now, do you see a grocery list, or something else entirely? Editor: Definitely something more... an intimate look behind the scenes, a portal into his process! I think I will appreciate these kinds of pieces even more going forward!