Studier af trækroner 1930 - 1936

Niels Larsen Stevns made this drawing of treetops with pencil, at an unknown date. It's a tangle of lines, really, but a specific, considered tangle. I love a drawing like this, where you can see the artist figuring things out. The pencil marks are urgent, almost frantic in places, building up little nests of shading. Look at the top right, see how the artist has massed together the lines to try and describe the density of the foliage. It's not about perfect representation, it's about the feeling of looking up into the crown of a tree, trying to grasp its structure. Stevns reminds me a little of Alfred Kubin. They both had this knack for capturing the gnarly, almost gothic quality of nature. This piece feels like a glimpse into Stevns' working process, a moment of pure observation and it reminds us that art is as much about questioning as it is about answering.