Studier af gravstene 1919

Niels Larsen Stevns made this pencil sketch of gravestones sometime in his life. It is a study, so we’re seeing the artist work through his ideas. The lines he uses are tentative, not quite sure of themselves, searching. See how the circular form of the gravestone is made up of so many smaller marks, kind of scribbled, that eventually add up to the shape? You get a sense of time passing, like you're watching his thought process right there on the page. There's something really intimate about that. It doesn't feel like he is presenting a "finished" work, more like documenting his thoughts and observations. The texture of the paper shows through, the marks don’t seem to want to fully cover the surface. The writing on the right suggests that the work exists between languages, between seeing and saying. This reminds me of Guston, whose late drawings also have that quality of just capturing a thought before it disappears. With both artists, you see them using art to try and grasp something fleeting. It is an ongoing conversation, a way of working through ideas rather than making a definitive statement.