Illustrationsudkast til H.C. Andersen, Skarnbassen (ikke anvendt) 1867

Curator: Look here, at this ink drawing titled "Illustrationsudkast til H.C. Andersen, Skarnbassen (ikke anvendt)" – that's "Illustration draft for H.C. Andersen, The Dung Beetle (not used)" – made around 1867 by Lorenz Frølich. It resides in the collection of the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Editor: It’s so light! Like a half-remembered dream. A scribbled landscape teeming with…beetles, I presume? There's a sense of nervous energy, a hustle conveyed through quick strokes. I immediately want to know what Andersen's story it illustrates. Curator: Well, it's fascinating because it wasn’t actually used. What we see, then, are preliminary ideas – symbolic visualizations Frølich never finalized for publication. This allows us a glimpse into his process, the visual vocabulary he was developing. Editor: Like spying on a secret garden, I love that! Did the beetle figure heavily into the narrative, do you know? The composition gives him so much space, dominating the center, doesn't it? And all those anxious smaller figures are scurrying about, maybe paying him homage? Curator: Andersen's tale "The Dung Beetle" involves vanity and social climbing. Frølich, through these figures, may have been aiming to depict those themes. Beetles are frequently associated with rot, decay, transformation… Editor: Decay, oh perfect! I can feel it now, that stifling pride turning inwards, becoming something grotesque, the terror of being "found out." A lovely darkness for a children’s story, haha. Curator: Precisely! What's intriguing is Frølich’s decision to group and individualize the beetles with such delicate lines. It's a subtle approach to representing individual folly versus collective pressure, reflecting, perhaps, social anxieties of the period. Editor: Absolutely, and there's almost no shading, it's all lines. Makes everything appear precarious. Curator: The illustration draft provides us insight into the discarded or untrodden paths of creation. Editor: Makes one wonder about the magic that can come from things not fully realized! Gives me such story ideas.