Hvor har du kunnet finde Vej herhen? 1901

Curator: Let’s discuss Fritz Syberg’s “Hvor har du kunnet finde Vej herhen?”, a drawing from 1901. The piece, rendered in ink, currently resides here at the SMK, Statens Museum for Kunst. What's your immediate take on it? Editor: Stark and unnerving. The composition, almost brutally simple, evokes a kind of raw fairytale... or maybe the suppressed, unspoken darkness behind one. It makes you want to look away. Curator: Symbolism was in full swing at the time. Syberg was actively interrogating themes of spirituality, morality, and the inner life. It's all quite deliberate—he engages with figuration in a pretty direct fashion in the context of a stark landscape. It’s a statement about what was simmering beneath the surface of Danish society. Editor: Totally. It feels deeply personal, almost feverish, doesn’t it? Like a sketch from a nightmare. The landscape, so vaguely rendered, and the sharp contrast with these figures, both sets somehow lost, trying to find direction or escape... and it almost doesn't matter from what... It resonates now with a sense of the collective dread and individual anguish of an unraveling. Curator: It’s also worth remembering that the accepted norms, particularly for domestic life, were undergoing a radical re-evaluation in Europe around the turn of the century, leading many to depict emotional disquiet that many women had, who at that time felt pressured into motherhood, regardless of if they wished to become mothers at all. Editor: I suppose, with this context, what seemed like stark darkness turns into an active struggle. Still disturbing, yes. Now also, I get this whisper of rebellion... almost triumph. An act of inner liberation cast on paper. Curator: I see it as a product of his time and its prevailing artistic sensibilities, touching upon the public anxiety around individual isolation at a very tense transitional moment. Editor: For me, it speaks across time; it echoes personal battles waged in this messy landscape, in search of peace or simply an acknowledgement of our struggle.