Udkast til freskerne i Viborg Domkirke. Søndre korsarms-hvælvning 1897

Joakim Skovgaard made this sketch for the Viborg Cathedral frescoes with pencil and watercolor. Here we see a study for the southern vault of the cathedral, displaying Christ surrounded by angels. Skovgaard's work was part of a larger project of national romanticism in Denmark. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a conscious effort to create a distinct Danish cultural identity. This manifested in art through the adoption of Viking and early Christian motifs, combined with the aesthetic principles of the Arts and Crafts movement. Skovgaard’s frescoes can be viewed as a progressive attempt to give the church a truly national character through art, drawing from popular culture, folk tales, and national history to express the concerns of the Danish people. Art historians researching Skovgaard’s practice have studied not only the visual and art historical aspects but also archival documents relating to the Danish church and the cultural politics of the period. This gives us a more complete picture of the artist’s ambitions, and the social and cultural forces that shaped his work.