Ridende Campagnol 1845

This is Johan Thomas Lundbye's "Ridende Campagnol", a pencil drawing on paper, held at the SMK. The artwork is dominated by the sketched figure of a rider on horseback, rendered with delicate, sparse lines that capture movement and form. Lundbye’s technique focuses on line and composition. Notice how the light touch of the pencil emphasizes contour over volume, giving the scene an ethereal, almost fleeting quality. This approach can be understood through a formalist lens, where the absence of dense shading shifts our focus to the essential structure of the subject. The open space around the figures invites a reading that goes beyond the representational. The sketch can be seen as engaging with broader philosophical questions about the relationship between the artist, the subject, and the act of seeing, reducing it to essential forms. The artwork suggests a dialogue between presence and absence, where the very act of sketching becomes a meditation on what it means to represent reality. This piece invites us to consider how art functions as a form of inquiry.