Illustration til "Halvhundrede Fabler for Børn" af Hey 1834

Curator: Welcome. We are looking at an 1834 illustration by Martinus Rørbye titled "Illustration til 'Halvhundrede Fabler for Børn' af Hey". It’s a drawing and print, employing pencil and engraving techniques. Editor: It has a gentle, almost naive quality. The textures achieved with pencil are wonderful, particularly on the resting bull. Its stillness contrasts so strongly with the almost frantic linework outlining the young child. Curator: Rørbye was working in a Denmark steeped in Romanticism. One has to think about the political context - the evolving ideas around childhood, nature, and national identity that fed into the art and literature of the period. This image speaks to an era of educational reform and children's literature. Editor: And consider the material process—the repetitive act of engraving those fine lines to build form, a craft in itself. There’s also the fascinating tension between the bull, presumably livestock and therefore ‘useful’ to the society it is placed in, against its idyllic backdrop. What sort of labor was going into creating images of idealized agrarian scenes for children during this time? Who would be commissioning images like these? Curator: That intersection of labor, imagery and emerging notions of childhood is fascinating. The narratives chosen for children's books – fables with morals about social structures - reflected contemporary societal values and the need to train young minds. The printing and circulation of such images created a visual culture around these values. Editor: Absolutely. And to make something very concrete like instruction become an image like this…that’s telling. I like that even as we try to read a didacticism to it, the rendering is very… human. Not mechanical at all. Curator: That's Rørbye's talent. He creates intimacy, even in a mass-produced image intended for consumption by many children. Editor: A simple moment, charged by context. Thinking about this today—who commissions art for children? The labor that goes into producing it. The art is never simple! Curator: Indeed. Thank you for helping us look beyond the immediate.