Mandshoved med kasket set i profil. En kasket 1872

P.C. Skovgaard made this understated graphite sketch of a man with a cap, sometime in the mid-19th century. Here, Skovgaard used an ordinary material – graphite – to capture a man in the midst of his life. The material's subtlety lends itself to the work’s intimate, informal quality. You can almost feel the artist rapidly recording a fleeting impression. Look closely, and you'll notice he’s made two attempts at rendering the cap. The thin graphite lines create an impression of volume and texture, particularly in the man's cap, giving us a sense of its weight and form. Drawings like this remind us that even the simplest materials, when wielded with skill, can capture the essence of human experience. The artist invites us to appreciate the value of everyday subjects, and to find beauty in the ordinary.