Row of Willows Near Borup 1935

Curator: Niels Larsen Stevns’s “Row of Willows Near Borup,” painted in 1935. I’m drawn to the texture—it feels so immediate. What jumps out at you? Editor: Well, before anything else, the colour. It’s unexpectedly heavy, somehow brooding for a landscape. You expect something sun-drenched but instead it feels…muted, almost weighted down. Curator: I get that. It's almost like the trees are sighing. Though, for a landscape, this oil on canvas definitely subverts expectations, right? The way the light plays is like visual memory. What is this image recalling? Editor: The willows themselves are ancient symbols of mourning, of course, and resilience. They bend, don't break. It makes me think of the historical moment. 1935…Europe on the precipice, a low hum of anxiety. Are these trees a kind of visual elegy, standing sentry over a fragile peace? Curator: I love that reading. And the impasto—that thick application of paint— it gives them such presence, a tangible, almost sculptural quality. Did you notice how the earth is rendered, how it pulls one way, and the sky pulls us back the other way? I like the friction this generates! Editor: Yes, that tension is key. The earth feels troubled. But those soft, pinkish clouds…they offer a kind of paradoxical hope. They're there but don’t fully arrive as light, perhaps reminding us that the future hasn’t been fully written, you know? The trees seem to be in conversation with this quiet struggle overhead. Curator: Stevns captured something so deeply felt in such an economical way, it's inspiring really. I'm going to think of my favorite trees in a whole new light from now on. Editor: Me too. This seemingly simple landscape is an invitation to pause and to let ourselves reflect, if only for a moment, about both the fragility and tenacity of existence.