Tre ænder og en hund 1879

Curator: At first glance, I see a study in quietude, a vignette suspended between light and shadow, domesticity and the wild. Editor: We're looking at an etching and drawing in ink, titled "Tre ænder og en hund" by Simon Ludvig Ditlev Simonsen, created around 1879. Currently, it resides here at the SMK, Statens Museum for Kunst. It presents, quite literally, three ducks and a dog. Curator: Three ducks and a dog, yes, but to me it's more about capturing a particular mood, a sense of place. Look how the light catches the ducks' feathers, while the dog remains more subdued in the background. The lines seem to convey sound in the etching; there is one duck staring upwards and it feels as if its honk can be heard! Editor: The muted tones amplify the realism, perhaps speaking to the rural, often harsh realities of Danish life at the time. We should acknowledge that artists depicted animals at rest, hunting dogs in particular, were a regular trope of landscape painters trying to win patronage, in this case through etching rather than traditional oil paintings. Curator: I feel an affinity with these sorts of pastoral, unassuming domestic scenes. Art doesn't always need to be grandiose to be meaningful; it's found in such intimate glimpses of ordinary existence, right? Editor: Absolutely, but who defines 'ordinary', and to what end? Perhaps the 'ordinary' here served to distance patrons and institutions from rapidly growing cities and industrial expansion. A deliberate nostalgic public image! Curator: Well, irrespective of that, for me the scene still exudes a peculiar magic that's quite disarming, that captures an everyday moment in such beautiful and considered light. Editor: Agreed; these subtle etchings do invite contemplation about life’s simple moments, no matter how contrived that simplicity was, or is!