Høst II. To nøgne mænd, der samler kornneg 1936 - 1937

This plaster relief of two nude men harvesting grain was made by Niels Larsen Stevns. The rough surface here makes me think about the labor of farming, the texture of the earth, and the physicality of the harvest. I imagine Stevns wrestling with the wet plaster, pushing and prodding it to life. What was he thinking about as he made this? Was he interested in the male form, or perhaps the toil of labor? Maybe he wanted to show the symbiotic relationship between man and nature? I can see the echoes of Rodin here and the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, with the way they handled form and their interest in the human figure. It’s like artists are in an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring each other. I like to think of painting like that too, as a kind of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity, allowing for multiple readings.