Landskab med indsø. Huse 1902

Curator: Immediately, a sense of stillness strikes me. It’s almost a cinematic still from some long-lost film. The use of dark and light in the etching evokes such strong nostalgia. Editor: This is Axel Holm's "Landskab med indsø. Huse," an etching created in 1902. Notice how the print medium itself, through the lines and their varying density, conveys so much about light and texture. Curator: Absolutely. It's not just the representation of a landscape; it’s also about how Holm translated this scene through the labor of etching, by deploying those individual lines on the plate, almost like threads in a weaving, where this kind of imagery really connects with popular imagery and its dissemination to a wide market, which seems striking here. But those cloud formations... Editor: Ah yes, clouds! Note the way Holm positions those cumulus forms; they aren’t just atmospheric features. Their soft, billowing shapes offer such a contrast to the geometric certainty of the architecture that it’s tempting to consider how those elements function as counterpoints for home and hearth and the sky as potential disruption to a safe domestic zone, if one allows such considerations. The house’s location feels incredibly stable. Curator: Stable perhaps, but I see something unsettling in the repetition of those lines of those fence palings and even roof tiles, you sense a sense of order and a strong contrast that seems at odds with the softness of nature and cloud formations and lush grass, and so, yes, it’s safe but repetitive labor, potentially alienated even in the Danish countryside, I wonder was this to commission. Editor: That’s interesting. Commission is possible, yet that cluster of dark trees in the foreground, almost obscuring the road... Those may suggest some shadow side or less immediately welcoming psychological space. There's something being hidden, a layer of reality beyond idyllic scenery maybe even trauma. The whole piece hints towards a deeper symbolic undercurrent beneath the landscape's surface. Curator: It is this careful crafting of light and shadow using etching as a production process that interests me in Holm's technique and material means in generating a particular set of relations to production as opposed to the more idealized and singular position we find in some landscapes; thank you for those alternative interpretations and ways to reflect upon these material conditions in more affective way, this opens new opportunities of understanding. Editor: My pleasure. I enjoyed tracing some potential, submerged narratives within Holm’s image with you; now it only remains to think on their meaning within ourselves!