To studiehoveder og en figur 1850 - 1899

Curator: Here we have "To studiehoveder og en figur," which translates to "Two Study Heads and a Figure," created sometime between 1850 and 1899 by Lorenz Frølich. It’s currently held at the SMK, the Statens Museum for Kunst. Editor: Ah, my kind of controlled chaos! The immediate impression is one of... rumination, wouldn't you say? Three distinct character studies crammed onto the page, like souls trapped in amber, all rendered with a confident hand, but definitely from an artist’s sketchbook. Curator: Absolutely. It appears to be ink or pencil work, maybe even a print based on the fineness of the lines, exhibiting a dedication to draftsmanship characteristic of academic artistic training at the time. We see Frølich, who was a notable illustrator and painter, really wrestling with capturing archetypes. He had a career creating history paintings. Editor: Wrestling is right! Look at that fierce brow on the figure at the bottom—he’s practically a Zeus in miniature, though perhaps one who’s just misplaced his thunderbolt and is supremely annoyed about it. Meanwhile, the woman at the top has the placid sorrow of someone about to be painted as a weeping saint. This all does have a whiff of preparatory study, but for what? The stage perhaps? A particularly grumpy family portrait? Curator: It speaks volumes about the 19th-century artistic practice. Sketches like this acted as a form of visual note-taking, allowing the artist to explore a range of facial expressions and figure types to incorporate these studies into his narrative compositions, informed by classical ideals and historical research. Editor: I'm caught up with his confident crosshatching – he’s squeezing all this expression from pure, dense lines, and I think what intrigues me most is that we can almost feel the pressure of the pencil on the page. It's intimate in that sketchbook way, yet at the same time, distant in its ambition to depict some 'eternal' type. You’ve really got the earthy grandfather with his rebellious, if thinning, locks; the noble sage, with all of the signs of maturity marked on his wise face. I can just feel the wisdom. But then this kind, patient woman who is quietly reflecting… who is she and why is she here? Curator: Considering Frølich's prominent work with illustrations inspired by Nordic mythology and history, it wouldn't be farfetched to posit that he envisioned incorporating such figural characterisations into these grand depictions, aimed to educate the populace and instill a sense of national pride, reflecting both aesthetic conventions and didactic purpose. Editor: A propaganda tool... Now, doesn’t that burst our artistic bubble? In any case, thanks for sharing all that context; it’s certainly helped reveal a little more. Curator: And thank you for sharing your perspectives; it gives these sketches more presence and character.