"Parti ved Emdrup" 1936

Claus Johansen made this pencil drawing, Parti ved Emdrup, which translates as 'Part of Emdrup', sometime in his life, but we're not sure when. The marks feel exploratory, like he's thinking through the forms, trying to get a sense of the place. It’s all about capturing the essence with these quick, searching lines. Look at the way he builds up the trees with scribbled marks, and how the landscape is just suggested. It’s not about detail; it’s about feeling. The texture of the paper becomes part of the drawing. There's a lovely rhythm in the repetition of the forms, those rounded shapes of the trees against the horizon line. It reminds me a little of the early sketches of Van Gogh, where you can see him working out his ideas, almost like a visual diary entry. It shows art as a journey, not just a destination.