Studie af Oehlenschlæger efter buste på Frederiksborg af A. Quittschreiber 1818. Studie af Oehlenschlæger i profil 1930 - 1936

Here's a pencil drawing on paper, a study of Oehlenschlæger, by Niels Larsen Stevns. Look at the nervous energy of the marks. The artist has built up the image of the Danish poet with short, hatched lines, giving us two slightly different views. I wonder what it was like for Stevns to be in front of that bust, studying its form, trying to capture something of Oehlenschlæger's likeness. Maybe he was thinking about the weight of history, the legacy of this famous writer. There's a kind of humility in a study like this, an acknowledgement of the past, but also a desire to engage with it, to make it his own. The light hatching feels tentative, like he is feeling his way through the darkness, towards something resembling form, a new way of seeing. It reminds me of the way Giacometti would work and rework his sculptures; it is about process rather than end result. That's what artmaking is all about: artists in dialogue with artists, across time.