Blank 1933 - 1934

This is a page from a sketchbook by Niels Larsen Stevns. Looking at these faint marks, you can imagine the artist, maybe on a train, doodling and then starting to work something out, rubbing it away, going over it again. I love that sense of uncertainty when you begin a piece, the not-knowing. You can almost feel the artist trying to work something out in the top left corner, like he's mapping something, or drawing a flower, or maybe something architectural. It's only just emerging from the page. And then on the right-hand side, those darker marks, those are much more certain. What's that about? You know, artists are always looking at each other's work, taking ideas, and pushing them in new directions. Stevns, with these exploratory gestures, reminds me of other painters who embrace that same kind of uncertainty. It's all about finding something out through the act of painting itself. It's not about answers, it's all about questions.