To udkast til "Kristus og de ti spedalske" 1937 - 1938

Curator: Here we have two preliminary sketches for "Christ and the Ten Lepers" by Niels Larsen Stevns, dating from around 1937-1938. They're executed on paper using pencil and coloured pencil. What catches your eye about these initial ideas? Editor: A fragility, certainly. An almost haunted quality. These barely-there figures huddled against an implied landscape. It feels less about depiction, more about a suggestion of profound suffering rendered with heartbreaking economy. Curator: Indeed. I think what's interesting here is observing the genesis of an artwork dealing with themes of social exclusion and healing through the basic tools of drawing. Paper and pencil: ubiquitous, cheap, democratic materials to portray a crucial social interaction. Editor: Absolutely, it strips away any pretence. What we see isn't the finished gloss, but the raw wrestle with the subject. It brings forth so many questions. Curator: Precisely, about the labor, about Stevns’ process and I suspect also about his anxieties concerning the work. What level of social commitment could he manage? Was drawing in pencil enough? Editor: There’s such stark contrast between the historical grandeur we often associate with religious painting and the mundane reality of the sketchbook right here. I like this humble form for what is an important, poignant depiction, or beginning of depiction, on suffering. Curator: Well said. By showing these drawings, the museum presents a different point of view for the interpretation of not only the biblical story, but also Larsen Stevns’ commitment and work, too. Editor: It makes you feel the weight of those choices, somehow. Like witnessing the birth of an idea in all its imperfect, vulnerable glory. It becomes a way of honouring, even sharing in, the weight of the story being told. Curator: Thank you for these brilliant reflections! It certainly gives us some good ideas as we go on exploring art in a social context! Editor: My pleasure. A small start on paper, to think about such great meaning: that is enough for me for now.