Studier af kænguru 1864 - 1941

These sketches of kangaroos were made with pencil on paper by Niels Larsen Stevns. I love seeing the process of artmaking laid bare like this. There's something so intimate about a sketchbook, isn't there? Here, the pencil lines are tentative, searching for the form, not quite committing. Look at the way the kangaroo's body is rendered with a few simple curves, almost like a question mark. The lines are so spare, yet they capture the essence of the animal's unique posture. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page, trying to understand the kangaroo's anatomy, its movement. It reminds me of Degas and his endless studies of ballerinas, or Picasso's notebooks filled with sketches of faces and figures. It's all about the process, the journey of discovery. It makes you wonder what Stevns was thinking as he drew, what he was hoping to capture, what he was hoping to learn. Art's about exploration more than explanation, don't you think?