A Burdock and Other Plants on a Stone Wall 1847

Curator: Here we have Johan Thomas Lundbye’s “A Burdock and Other Plants on a Stone Wall,” painted in 1847, using oil on what appears to be wood. It strikes me as a detailed botanical study, rendered in muted tones. What’s your initial impression? Editor: It does feel like a detailed study, and there is a great focus on the leaves, so lush and full, with that wall contrasting nicely against the earth tones of the background. What is it that you notice most about the materials used to create this effect? Curator: Precisely. For me, it's the interplay between the industrial and the natural. Lundbye's focus on the common burdock elevates what might be seen as mundane materials. Why this intense focus on something so ordinary? Consider the social context of 1847—industrialization was rapidly changing the landscape. Does this painting then represent a yearning for an older relationship to nature? A connection to specific localities and materials? Editor: That's interesting – the ordinary made important by material realities. So the burdock becomes almost symbolic of resistance against that industrial tide? The wood base itself would be sourced very locally? Curator: Exactly! It makes you wonder about Lundbye's choice of wood as a support – was it locally sourced, easily accessible, perhaps even salvaged? Each material element plays a part in the narrative. This wasn't simply paint applied to a surface, this was a careful meditation. Even in how the brushstrokes create an impasto quality, which then brings the materials and construction even more to the front, instead of trying to blend them or fade away to be ‘invisible.’ Editor: So looking closely at the materials lets us uncover these other levels of meaning? To see beyond just the visual representation to the time period and its values? I definitely notice so much more when thinking this way about the painting. Curator: Precisely. And I will think now that everyday material engagement holds narratives far exceeding their visible manifestation.