To udkast til Kristi dåb 1920 - 1923

This sheet of paper holds two sketches for 'The Baptism of Christ' by Joakim Skovgaard, probably made sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. You can see how Skovgaard is working out the composition, figuring out where to place the figures in relation to each other and the landscape. The pencil lines are tentative, searching. They remind me that artmaking is a process of discovery rather than just a transcription of something already known. Look at the lower image, the delicate hatching suggests the curve of the hills in the background, but it’s also just a bunch of lines, you know? Together they build space and form, but they remain marks on a page. I like the way Skovgaard lets you see the artifice, lets you see the working. Thinking about how these sketches eventually became a large, completed painting, it’s funny how ideas can evolve, transform, and take on new meanings through different materials and scales. It makes you wonder, what is the relationship between the sketch and the final work? Which is more real, or true? The answer is probably both, and neither. Art is always a conversation with itself, never really finished.