Studier af mesopotamiske hoveder 1919

Niels Larsen Stevns made these Studies of Mesopotamian Heads with graphite on paper. The nervous energy of the marks suggests he was trying to figure something out, get it down, capture the essence. I wonder what he was thinking, making these? Perhaps he was taken by the forms of the ancient world and trying to bring them into his own. Look at the weight of the lines, how they build up and then fade away, searching for the form, not quite finding it, but getting somewhere new in the process. The graphite is so immediate, like thought itself. Sketching is such a direct way to communicate a feeling; the gesture implies meaning. It makes me think about other artists who work with line, who use drawing as a way to explore the world and their place in it. Like Cy Twombly, who scratched and scribbled his way to a kind of raw beauty. Artists are always talking to each other, across time and space, inspiring each other to see and feel in new ways. This work embraces uncertainty, allowing for multiple readings, a conversation that never really ends.