Skitser af fugle 1900 - 1904

Niels Larsen Stevns made this drawing of birds with pencil on paper. What’s nice about a sketchbook is that you feel so close to the artist, right? You get to see them in a vulnerable state, like you’re looking over their shoulder as they work things out. I imagine Niels outdoors, watching, really watching, the birds. He is trying to figure out the essence of a bird. Not its feathers or beak, but its bird-ness. The lines are simple, almost child-like, but they capture the essence of the bird’s movement. It's as if he’s trying to distill the bird into its most basic form. Painters, we are all in conversation with one another, even across time. We see the way other artists have tried to capture the world, and it inspires us to try our own hand at it. This is a great drawing to be inspired by.