En hjort, en hind og deres lam 1818 - 1848

Johan Thomas Lundbye made this pen and brown ink drawing of a deer family, sometime in the 1800s. Lundbye was a Danish artist who often drew inspiration from the natural world. But what was the ‘natural world’ supposed to mean in early 19th Century Denmark? Well, images of nature were often tied up with ideas about national identity. This was a time of political change and a growing sense of Danish cultural pride. Artists like Lundbye turned to the local landscape, its animals and its rural scenes, as a way to define what it meant to be Danish. Paintings and drawings like this weren't just pretty pictures, they were part of a bigger conversation about who ‘we’ are as a nation, and what ‘we’ value. By looking closely at these artworks, and researching the social context in which they were made, we can gain insight into the way art engages with social structures.