Dame i sofa 1906

This is Christian Kongstad Petersen's sketch of a lady on a sofa. It’s hard to tell when it was made, and it’s been done with a humble pencil on paper. The sketch has an unfinished quality, almost like a fleeting thought captured on paper. Look at how Petersen uses these scribbly, energetic lines to build up the form. It feels like he's searching for the right contours, the way the light falls, almost like he's thinking out loud. There’s something so raw and immediate about that process. The hatching that defines the sofa and the shadows on the wall—it's not about perfection, but about the energy of the mark itself. The way he suggests the folds of her dress and the soft cushion she is sitting on, all with these restless lines. It reminds me a little of some of Vuillard’s drawings, that same sense of intimacy and everyday life. In both artists’ work, the beauty lies in the doing, not just the seeing.