Ved en indsø. Storm 1849 - 1909

Curator: There’s a palpable sense of melancholy washing over me as I look at this artwork. It's as though the wind itself whispers tales of longing. Editor: Let me introduce you to “Ved en insø. Storm,” or "By a lake. Storm", an etching created between 1849 and 1909. It resides here at the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. What visual cues create this melancholic feeling for you? Curator: Well, the very fact that it is a landscape dominated by the wind. The bent trees—they’re like figures in distress, leaning away from some unseen force. And there's this rickety old pier, almost submerged. It seems to lead nowhere, a path into the unknown. Editor: It is a realist landscape, though one certainly tinged with emotional expressiveness. How might our perception be shaped by the visual language of the etching itself? Curator: The etching itself, being black and white, heightens that sense of rawness and struggle. You can almost feel the grit of the storm on your face. The details are so carefully rendered. Editor: Note, for instance, how the texture is used, the sky with hatching, a few well-placed white blotches on the water suggesting the chop. Do these features help or hinder emotional expression, you think? Curator: It is as if it tries to record this intense experience, rather than smooth it over or make it pretty. This realism is interesting as its intensity underscores the way weather has a lasting emotional weight on all of us. Editor: Indeed. I appreciate how the artist harnesses the printmaking process. One can observe a dynamic scene in an intimately-sized form. Thank you, then, for drawing out these subtle, yet evocative components that speak to human experience, and especially our connection with elemental forces of the earth. Curator: My pleasure. And yes, its scale invites a sort of private communion, I'll have to seek out my elemental forces, my connection with the land.