Blank 1846

This is a blank page from a sketchbook by Johan Thomas Lundbye, a Danish artist working in the first half of the 19th century. The very emptiness of this page speaks volumes about the social conditions that shape artistic production. Think of the sketchbook itself as an institutional object, a tool sanctioned by art academies and private tutors for training the artist's eye and hand. Lundbye, who died very young, was a product of this system. These blank pages would have been filled with studies from nature, copies after old masters, and preliminary sketches for larger paintings destined for exhibition at the Royal Danish Academy. But this page remains untouched, a void that invites us to consider the complex interplay between artistic intention, social expectation, and the unpredictable realities of life. To understand Lundbye's work more fully, we might turn to letters, exhibition catalogues, and critical reviews, all resources that help us reconstruct the world in which his art took shape. By understanding these contexts we can learn more about the politics of imagery.