Studier af to af løvekvadrene fra Øster Starup kirke 1900 - 1904

Niels Larsen Stevns made this pencil sketch, Studies of Two Lions, to examine details from Øster Starup church. It's all about the line here, isn’t it? See how the marks are searching, adjusting, like the artist is feeling his way around the form. There's something so intimate about a drawing like this, you can almost see the artist thinking. I love the way the lines build up, creating a sense of volume and weight, but also leaving areas open and undefined. That kind of ambiguity is exciting to me. Take the head of the lion, for example. It’s not overly laboured, but full of life. The sketch is almost a conversation, isn’t it? It reminds me of some of Picasso’s sketchbooks, where you see him working through ideas, trying things out. I guess art is always a kind of dialogue, a conversation between artists across time. It's never really finished, is it? Always open to interpretation.