Udkast til bibelsk motiv. Den besatte i gerasernes land 1864 - 1941

This pencil sketch of a biblical scene was made by Niels Larsen Stevns and it’s like we're catching him in a moment of pure thought, right? I imagine him, bent over this page, trying to wrangle these figures into some kind of order. Look at those looping lines suggesting hair, or maybe a crowd, it’s all so tentative. It’s like he's feeling his way through the story, letting the pencil lead him. What I love about sketches like this is how raw they are. You see the artist grappling with the subject, not trying to give you a perfect picture but an impression, a feeling. And that one figure, hunched over, almost swallowed by the marks around him. It’s as if Stevns is saying something about the weight of belief, or the struggle within. Artists, we’re all just scribbling in the margins, trying to figure things out, one line at a time.