Blank 1930 - 1936

Curator: Right now, we are looking at "Blank," a work made with colored pencil and watercolor on paper between 1930 and 1936 by Niels Larsen Stevns, housed here at the SMK. Editor: "Blank," huh? It really does feel…blank. Like staring out at a winter sky just before snow. It's delicate, muted, a suggestion more than a declaration. Is that the intention, do you think? Curator: Well, if we consider the time period, the 30s, it is likely this "Blank" is less about nothingness, and more a study. Note the quiet structural rhythm within the barest strokes of color pencil. He used horizontals in landscape, but he used an almost modernist restraint. Editor: Ah, I see it now! Those subtle blues. It's a very hushed sort of landscape. A negative space containing a universe. Like potential energy before anything actually happens. Knowing its modernist, one can sense a yearning to deconstruct all of that pictorial romanticism in landscape. Curator: Precisely. Stevns' focus on rudimentary form also reflects a deeper modernist trend. The paper itself almost becomes part of the landscape. See how he integrates the bare areas to become like misty atmosphere? Editor: So, it becomes an invitation. We are not given a pretty finished painting. Stevns challenges the viewer to project. Like an impression slowly coming into focus in one’s own mind...That blank canvas of the mind to be filled with landscape...almost sublime. Curator: Exactly. We look for the emotional intensity that still manages to come through. Landscape tradition still runs throughout. But the almost un-rendered quality—like a question. A beautiful dance on the edge of visibility! Editor: A beautiful sketch, it opens space for more than is rendered and that, as you say, is such a curious achievement in the tradition of landscape drawing!