Blomsterstudier 1937 - 1938

Niels Larsen Stevns created this flower study in pen, somewhere between 1864 and 1941. The flowers emerge from the lined page in delicate strokes, reaching upwards. I love the way the artist used the pen to capture the delicate balance between the flower's structure and its ephemeral beauty. I can almost feel the scratch of the pen on paper, a dance of observation and translation. It reminds me of my own process, trying to pin down a fleeting thought or emotion with a brushstroke, the marks becoming a record of a journey. Maybe Stevns was working out something, trying to capture the essence of the flower's vitality before it faded. There is a kinship with the work of other artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who used his drawings as a way to study form and color. And like them, Stevns is part of a long conversation with artists across time, each of them exploring how to capture the world around us in their own way. It's like we're all in the same room, bouncing ideas off each other, inspiring new ways of seeing.