Udkast til Kains offer 1919

Joakim Skovgaard made this sketch for Cain’s Sacrifice with pencil on paper. I'm really drawn to the way the figures are just barely there, like ghosts on the page. It’s as if they are emerging from the blankness, struggling to take shape. I imagine Skovgaard, bent over this small piece of paper, coaxing these forms into being, line by tentative line. Look at the way Cain is drawn on the right, he seems to turn in on himself, almost as if he is ashamed. The lines are so delicate they might disappear at any moment! But it’s that very fragility that makes it so powerful. He has captured something essential about human nature, that sense of being caught between worlds, of never quite being fully formed. I feel like I'm in an ongoing conversation with Skovgaard here, his drawing has sparked something in me, and I know that it will continue to resonate long after I’ve left the gallery.