Studier af ornament og profiler 1919

Editor: This is Niels Larsen Stevns' "Studier af ornament og profiler," or "Studies of Ornament and Profiles" made in 1919. It’s a pencil drawing. I see a lot of geometric shapes and these almost baroque decorative elements side by side... it gives the work a very draft-like quality, as if the artist was jotting down initial concepts. What do you see in it? Curator: For me, this drawing feels like stumbling upon the artist's intimate thought process. Imagine Stevns, pencil in hand, observing the world around him, these fragments of architectural detail, ornate moldings. They aren't grand pronouncements, but humble studies. The artist isolates these tiny, often-overlooked, details. Makes you wonder about the kind of architecture he was inspired by, don't you think? What caught his eye? Editor: Definitely. Was he thinking about a particular building? Or perhaps different architectural styles that he wanted to combine? Curator: Exactly! Perhaps he was fascinated by how these ornate, historical elements could be integrated into something entirely new. I find a quiet beauty in its incompleteness, don’t you think? This is a fleeting thought captured in pencil, raw and immediate. The act of looking is, itself, the artwork. Editor: I never considered a drawing could be beautiful in its "unfinished-ness," which makes this piece more appealing to me now! Curator: Yes, and now it becomes our shared memory. What you just realized will change how you view the drawing next time.