Slutningsscenen af Den pantsatte bondedreng 1865 - 1965

Wilhelm Marstrand made this drawing, Slutningsscenen af Den pantsatte bondedreng, with a pen and ink, sketching out a stage for human drama. It's all about the line here; a quick, responsive squiggle giving form to figures frozen in what looks like a moment of reckoning. Marstrand builds up the scene with these incredible hatching marks. Look at how the pen travels across the paper, sometimes dense and dark, other times sparse, leaving areas open and airy. The texture this creates is just so alive, giving the scene a real pulse. It’s as if the ink is trying to capture the weight of the story, the heft of the emotion on display. You can see the lines bunching up especially around the faces, tugging downward, implying tension, a kind of weight, and the start of worry lines. Marstrand’s got a wonderful way of letting the medium do the work, letting the pen fly, and trusting the process to reveal the heart of the story. Think of Goya or Daumier. He understands that art is as much about what you leave out as what you put in.