Udkast til Ester Balles gravmæle, med notater 1906

Niels Larsen Stevns made this series of sketches for Ester Balle’s gravestone – I imagine him with his pencil, maybe in his studio, perhaps outside in a park somewhere, working ideas out on this grid paper. He’s got a couple of different options going on here. The most visible are the shapes of headstones—long rectangles topping a kind of crucifix. I see the alphabet inscribed, almost like a code. It's interesting how Stevns has integrated text and image, thinking about how language and form can intertwine to convey meaning. I wonder what Stevns was thinking about, who he spoke to, what he was reading at the time. Was he looking at other headstones? I can imagine him walking around a cemetery taking rubbings and making notes. Artists are always absorbing and responding to what has come before, letting it filter through their own sensibilities. It's all part of the ongoing conversation.