Skovinteriør 1865 - 1951

Henrik Bornemann created this little world, "Skovinteriør", with etching, and it's currently housed at the SMK. The magic of etching lies in its mark-making. It’s about digging into a surface, letting the acid bite, and then inking up the plate to reveal a whole other universe. What grabs me is how Bornemann creates depth, how he uses dense lines to suggest a light-swallowing forest. Look at the fallen tree in the foreground, see how it plunges us right into the thick of things? And then, the way the background dissolves into this misty nothingness – it’s like a memory, or a dream. It reminds me a little bit of Piranesi’s etchings, but where Piranesi is all about grand, imaginary architecture, Bornemann finds the sublime in the mundane, in the quiet chaos of the forest floor. Art, at its best, is like a conversation between artists across time and space. It's about taking what came before and twisting it, turning it into something new.