Figurudkast 1901

This sheet of paper, now at the SMK in Copenhagen, has been worked over with graphite by Lorenz Frølich. I can feel the artist moving, circling around the figures, finding the pose that best describes them. It is like Frølich is in the studio, working it out, turning the model this way and that. The artist is looking, questioning, rejecting, and accepting. You can imagine that the artist began with a single line, building each figure up tentatively. Each mark here communicates feeling, intention, even meaning. It feels like he’s talking to other artists, isn't it? There’s a kind of conversation happening across time. And it’s not just about representation; it's about the embodied experience of drawing, of reaching for something beyond what we already know. In the end it is a dialogue between the artist, their materials, the subject, and us. And, of course, so many layers of interpretation are possible!