To syende kvinder ved et havebord 1922

Curator: This ink drawing, “To syende kvinder ved et havebord”, created in 1922 by Maurice Asselin, depicts two women sewing at an outdoor table. It's held in the collection of the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Editor: My first impression is… quiet intimacy. The stark ink gives it a kind of contemplative feel, like a secret moment caught between friends. It makes me wonder what they're sewing, what they're thinking about. Curator: Absolutely. There’s a real sense of observation here, of catching the women unawares in a very private activity. The rapid, fluid lines of the ink work capture not just their physical forms but also the atmosphere. Notice how the faces are quite minimally defined; it’s more about posture and placement. Editor: Exactly! It's not a hyper-realistic representation, and it invites us to interpret their emotions. The heavy, shadowed ink lines might indicate the burden they could feel performing their duties. Also the formal qualities make it a very modern approach for the era in terms of rendering the human form and space. There's something proto-Cubist about how the space sort of tilts forward at us. Curator: Interesting point. And that looseness in the execution lends it this feeling of fleetingness, that impression. We’re peering into a very particular slice of everyday life. Editor: I love how Asselin manages to evoke that atmosphere without heavy detail. You get the sense of a hot day, perhaps, shaded by a tree with the two women bent over their needlework, and that table serves as the anchor to our observation, both binding the women and forming a border between them and ourselves. Curator: It is fascinating to think about this seemingly simple drawing acting as a doorway into their quiet, focused world. Editor: A doorway and invitation! Thank you for allowing me to witness this slice of someone else's daily grind. It gives one a renewed sense of wonder.