Studie af bøgegren 1910

Joakim Skovgaard made this drawing of a beech branch with pencil on paper, though we don’t know exactly when. I love the casualness of this drawing. There’s a real pleasure taken in the details of the leaves, each one considered and given its own weight and space, and you can almost see the artist’s hand moving across the page, feeling its way through the form. Look at the way the leaves overlap, some dark, some light, and how the direction of the marks create volume. It’s like a visual dance; the graphite almost has a life of its own. The artist seems to be saying, "I'm just going to let the pencil do its thing and see what happens." It reminds me of drawings by Van Gogh, where humble subjects are given heroic treatment. You can see in this drawing the joy of looking. It’s loose, immediate, and alive.