Fiskeskitser 1905 - 1907

Niels Larsen Stevns made these fish sketches on paper, probably in a notebook, sometime in his life. It's really about the action of drawing, isn’t it? The lines are searching and tentative, like he's feeling his way around the form of the fish. Look at the bottom fish, see how it is more defined? You can see the eye and some cross hatching and detail. The other fish look more like ghostly presences, like memories, or thoughts about fish. There’s a beauty in its incompleteness, a sense of possibility. It reminds me a little of drawings by Picasso, where he’s trying to capture the essence of something with just a few lines. Art doesn't always have to be about finishing something, it can be about the joy of looking and trying to understand the world around us. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?