Udkast til Ester Balles gravmæle 1906

This sketchbook page of pen drawings was made by Niels Larsen Stevns, probably around the early 1900s, and is a study for a tombstone. You can see the artist working through ideas, shifting and changing his mind as he goes. I really feel for the artist here, trying to come up with a fitting design. It's so hard to commemorate someone, especially in stone. I see the marks of the pen, the texture of the paper, and the way he's scratching out lines. It makes me think about the physical act of drawing. I wonder what he was thinking about while making these sketches. Was he thinking about her life? About grief? About how to make something that would last? The grid paper reminds me of graph paper, but less accurate. The shapes are contained, and the text looks more like an image than a word. It's a reminder that artists are always in conversation with each other across time, inspiring each other's creativity. Painting is a form of expression that embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple meanings. It allows for change.