A Mill in Odense 1642 - 1645

Curator: Dankvart Dreyer painted "A Mill in Odense" between 1642 and 1645. It's a watercolor on paper and can be found right here at the SMK. It is regarded as one of the finest examples of plein-air landscape paintings from the Romantic period. Editor: It gives me the sense of a peaceful moment, suspended in time. The colors are soft, muted. Everything seems to blend together, creating this feeling of gentle stillness, like holding your breath underwater in the summertime. Curator: Absolutely. What interests me here is the socio-historical perspective. Given its Romantic sensibility, it is imperative to delve into Dreyer’s positionality. What did "nature" mean to the rising bourgeois consciousness of 19th-century Denmark, particularly during a period of national self-definition and evolving gender roles? How might those power structures manifest? Editor: I get that; there’s definitely a narrative woven in—but maybe it is not exactly oppressive! Look how the light almost dissolves the edges of things. It's as though the town itself is exhaling, isn’t it? Letting go. To me, that is just what strikes me. It feels much more… accepting. Maybe even queer? Curator: That's certainly one way to read the work's ambiguity. However, a formalist interpretation risks sidestepping crucial social and economic disparities. Shouldn't we also consider the environmental impact of the mill itself on the local community? Was this bucolic setting a reality for all inhabitants, or was it an idealized vision accessible only to a privileged few? Editor: Maybe it's both! Like, isn't that what's interesting about landscape painting in general? This image feels incredibly intimate, immediate… like the product of walking those very fields—that that lived experience coexisting, side by side with historical realities. I imagine Dreyer pausing and thinking "damn… " Curator: Perhaps you’re right about landscape existing in those interstices, that it can be multiple things. It forces me to examine my reading. Editor: Cool. Now I need a nap.