Studier af drengehoved og ben 1896

This pencil drawing on paper, titled "Studies of a Boy's Head and Legs," was created by Niels Larsen Stevns, a Danish artist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Stevns, like many artists of his time, engaged in academic study, honing his skills through life drawing and anatomical studies. But this was also a time of social change and the birth of modernism. Artists began to challenge the established norms of the art academy and explored new ways of representing the world around them. Stevns's sketch, located here in the Statens Museum for Kunst, provides a glimpse into the artist's process. We can see him working through the challenges of representing the human form. Did he believe the goal of art was to represent reality or comment on it? By consulting the artist's writings, as well as the exhibition history of the Statens Museum for Kunst, we can begin to understand his place in the complex social and artistic landscape of Denmark at the turn of the century.