Badende børn på stranden 1904 - 1906

Fritz Syberg made this drawing of kids bathing on the beach with a dark, scribbly line on a small piece of paper. It's like he was trying to catch a quick memory, a flash of a day at the beach. I can almost feel Syberg standing there, squinting at the light, trying to capture the way the kids move and splash. I imagine him thinking about the relationship between mark making, vision, and memory, about how just a few lines can evoke so much. Look at the marks around the children: those could be the movement of the water, the feeling of light on their bodies, or the pure joy of being in the water. Syberg probably saw himself in those kids, maybe remembering his own childhood summers. Artists are always doing that, aren't they? Looking back, looking forward, and talking to each other across time. It's about finding the freedom to express something, anything, with just a few simple lines.