Studier af græske og etruskiske steler 1932 - 1935

Niels Larsen Stevns made these Studies of Greek and Etruscan Stelae with pencil on paper. The process is laid bare; this sketch feels raw, like a page ripped straight from the artist’s notebook. Here, line becomes everything. Each form is built up with quick, searching marks, almost like shorthand. The light touch and simple delineation reminds me of Cy Twombly’s looser, more graphic works on paper, which are about pure gesture and the joy of expression. There's a lovely example of this in the bottom left corner, where a jumble of scribbled figures, like something out of a child’s picture book, frame the composition. Ultimately, these sketches feel like a meditation on form itself, revealing how the artist's eye moves across the page. This isn’t about perfect representation, but about engaging in a conversation with the past through the act of drawing. And that, to me, is what art is all about.