En å med bro. I baggrunden en skov 1872

Curator: Let’s discuss P.C. Skovgaard’s pencil drawing, “En å med bro. I baggrunden en skov” from 1872. It’s currently held here at the Statens Museum for Kunst. Editor: Immediately, a sense of quietude strikes me. It's almost melancholic. The bridge seems to offer a passage, but to where? The blurred background makes me think of unfulfilled promises, and perhaps of nature in resistance. Curator: Skovgaard was deeply invested in depicting the Danish landscape as an emblem of national identity. Here, the river, bridge, and forest— rendered realistically through delicate pencil strokes—function as symbols of the Danish soul and its deep connection to nature. The symbolism evokes specific locations but transcends them, turning this intimate place into an everyplace of national Romanticism. Editor: But for whom was this nature accessible, really? Landscapes like this often mask complex relationships to the land and issues around property, control, and resource extraction. Who had access to cross this bridge, and who was excluded from the landscape, by this construction? It is never an idyll for everyone. Curator: Interesting. In Skovgaard’s time, the national Romantics yearned to define the "typical" Danish landscape to establish an imaginary national community. It’s likely he focused less on socioeconomic factors. Yet you’re right. This “typical” nature becomes a very curated experience with who’s considered “in” or “out”. The artist uses realism here to define and evoke that national essence. Editor: Perhaps the melancholy I sensed then arises from this imposed, and ultimately exclusionary, symbolic load. What initially seems like an innocent study bears, on closer examination, the marks of a nation in construction. It really causes reflection, in both senses. Curator: Precisely. This work prompts me to re-examine symbols of my own history and question the underlying narratives. What appears neutral often has an encoded system of rules defining the experience, as it can tell the truth, but not the entire truth. Editor: Definitely food for thought; and that's what makes revisiting history worth doing!