Plantestudie 1906 - 1910

Niels Larsen Stevns made this plant study with ink on paper, and you can really sense the immediacy of the moment. I love how the quick, thin lines capture the essence of these plants, focusing on their form more than their detail. It’s like he's thinking through drawing. The texture of the paper is visible beneath the lines. It adds a certain warmth and vulnerability to the study. Notice the variety of marks, from the tentative, almost hesitant lines, to the confident strokes that define the leaves, creating this energy that animates the whole page. Look at how the plant on the right seems to creep and wind its way up the page, it almost feels like it might keep growing! This reminds me of some of Matisse’s line drawings, where he used simple lines to convey volume and shape. Both artists share a love of the expressive potential of simple marks. It shows how art can be this ongoing conversation across time, a sharing of ideas and ways of seeing.