Scene fra Hamlet. 3. akt, 1. scene 1808 - 1889

Erling Eckersberg made this pen and ink drawing entitled, "Scene fra Hamlet. 3. akt, 1. scene," sometime in the 19th century. Here we see the Danish artist imagining Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Let's consider the social and cultural context of Eckersberg’s Denmark. His father was Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, the father of Danish painting, and Erling trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The elder Eckersberg instilled in his students a commitment to naturalism and observation, part of a broader European movement towards realism, but also sought to cultivate a distinctive Danish national art. Here, Erling depicts a scene from a play by an English playwright, but his commitment to representing nature and the human form speaks to the aesthetic and social values promoted by the Royal Danish Academy. By looking at the institutional histories of art academies and understanding the movements and styles they promoted, we can gain a deeper understanding of artists such as Erling Eckersberg.