Skitse af får. Notat 1900 - 1905

Editor: So, here we have Niels Larsen Stevns’ "Skitse af får. Notat", which roughly translates to "Sketch of Sheep. Note," done in pencil on paper sometime between 1900 and 1905. It looks like it's straight from the artist's sketchbook. I’m struck by the immediacy of the lines – it feels so fleeting. What do you see in it? Curator: Immediacy is a great word! It reminds me of my grandmother’s flock. Pencil allows for second thoughts, doesn't it? See how the sheep's form seems to both exist and not exist simultaneously? The artist is capturing a sense of movement, a momentary impression of weight and wool. The note hints, “a detail remembered, time collapsed.” Is this about memory more than animal form? Editor: Oh, that’s interesting! I hadn't thought about memory. It makes me wonder if it's not so much about the sheep itself, but the feeling it evokes, like a Proustian madeleine… Curator: Exactly! And the very casual nature – scribbled notations. They are a parallel to the visual: notes that are as much poetry as observation, reminding me how art transforms experience into feeling, into understanding, something like that. Don't you think? Editor: I do. It’s like the artist is trying to pin down not just what the sheep *looks* like, but what it *feels* like to observe it. The vulnerability of the medium adds to it, somehow. It’s as if we're seeing into the artist's mind… Curator: I love that idea: ‘seeing into the artist’s mind.’ Makes me want to dig into my own sketchbooks. So, where shall our ears take us next, then?