Rejsedagbog 1845

Editor: This is Johan Thomas Lundbye's "Rejsedagbog" or "Travel Journal" from 1845, and it's a drawing on paper. The pages are filled with dense script, it looks almost like musical notations across the page. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: What I find immediately compelling is how the handwritten text becomes almost an abstract visual field. Words, inherently carriers of meaning, here become shapes, textures. It recalls illuminated manuscripts where the text was as important visually as it was semantically, performing a kind of sacred function, or, if not sacred, highly revered. Lundbye’s act of recording a journey elevates experience. What journeys, literal or metaphorical, do you see alluded to? Editor: I guess, observing Romanticism as a style, the act of travelling must be symbolic of change, a personal journey towards growth? Is that embedded in the script itself too? Curator: Precisely! Handwriting itself bears the mark of individuality. Each curve, each slant tells something about the writer. Lundbye, in meticulously documenting his journey, is not simply recording facts; he's preserving his unique experience. Think of the modern impulse for self-documentation – journals, photo albums. We capture moments as a means of preserving our own narrative, our journey. Does this journal serve as a kind of self-portrait then? Editor: Definitely! Seeing the journal as more than just plain text changes my perspective entirely. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure. Now you’re equipped to perceive this work with a richer understanding of its historical and symbolic echoes.