Den lille slange 1917

Editor: This is "Den lille slange," or "The Little Snake," a pencil drawing on paper by Niels Skovgaard, created in 1917. The sketch-like quality makes it seem very immediate and raw, but also strangely unsettling with the stark lines running through the scene. What can you tell me about it? Curator: Look at the density of marks around the figure and the hearth. It signals value in that particular pictorial space through labor and material means. The artist has chosen to invest his time there. Notice too, the swift, economical lines describing the figures further back. What does this distribution of labor and its resulting materiality suggest to you about the central figure's role within the scene? Editor: It does feel like she is meant to be the most important, commanding the artist’s attention through detail in the drawing. How might her adornments—necklace, crown— factor in the way the artist labors over portraying her? Curator: Exactly. We need to consider these markers of status as not just symbolic, but products of material processes. These details denote social class and access to specific materials and artisanry. Consider the paper itself: its availability during wartime, its cost, its journey to the artist’s hand. This then shifts the way we look at the 'drawn' social implications, and places the economic dimensions of depiction at the forefront. What does the medium, as well as the figures represented, tell us about the artist's process of meaning-making? Editor: It seems to ground the ethereal quality of the subject in a concrete reality, highlighting not just the story but also the artist's active role in its production. Curator: Precisely. Analyzing the materiality and mode of production urges us to acknowledge the artist’s hand in constructing the narrative and to see how even a sketch is embedded in a web of economic and social relations.