Skitse af bygning 1906

This small sketch of a building was made by Niels Larsen Stevns sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. It's a quickly rendered idea in ink on graph paper. I love how the artist is working something out here – it's a little wonky, and not everything lines up. The architectural forms are reduced to hatched rectangles and squares, with a few confident lines that describe a kind of modernist structure. I can imagine Stevns hunched over this little notebook, perhaps on a train, trying to distill what he saw into its most basic components. The lines are so clear, so decisive, that they make me think of other architects and painters, like Agnes Martin, who found inspiration in the simplicity of form. It reminds me that art is a conversation across time, each artist building on the ideas of those who came before. Stevns' sketch invites us to consider how we see and interpret the structures around us, and how even the simplest lines can convey a world of meaning.