Landskabsskitse 1906

Niels Larsen Stevns made this landscape sketch with ink on paper. It's a study really, maybe done outside, a way of trying to figure something out. It’s so immediate, it feels like the artist is right there, pen in hand. Look at the way he uses these quick, vertical lines, almost like shorthand, to suggest depth. The ink is so dark against the aged paper, which is gridded. That grid feels like an underlayer, something he worked on top of. I love the way the vertical marks collide with the grid; it is so present. I can see how he felt as he observed this landscape, maybe making many quick sketches one after the other. I see echoes of someone like Van Gogh in Stevns' commitment to capturing the feeling of a place. It’s about finding a language, a way of marking, that gets at something beyond just what it looks like. It’s about how it feels, you know? The conversation of art carries on and on.