Dagbog. Side 115 1844

Curator: Well, here we have Johan Thomas Lundbye’s “Dagbog. Side 115” from 1844. It’s ink on paper – a page torn straight from the artist’s diary. At first glance, it appears just a page of rather lovely handwriting. What's your impression? Editor: Yes, exactly. I see this journal entry filled with script in faded sepia ink, the stark white and faint grid of the chain lines; it is both beautiful in the form and intimate somehow – the visible fibres seem as familiar and tactile as a vintage textile. How do you interpret this kind of a peek into an artist's personal thoughts, especially knowing Lundbye’s engagement with Romanticism? Curator: Ah, that’s precisely the thing, isn't it? What's written here in cramped Gothic script, probably legible only to the artist or those intimate to him? But knowing Lundbye and his love of nature, especially the Danish landscape, this illegibility invites me to dream... This could be the record of a beautiful sunset that triggered an epiphany or an inconsequential errand run in town! Perhaps it even inspired a work of art! Does the secrecy draw you closer? Editor: That's a great way to look at it; thinking of it as an indirect kind of Romantic landscape. The unreadable words somehow create a sense of atmosphere. Like a kind of private sensory experience I'm almost allowed to share. I suppose the actual meaning becomes secondary. Curator: Precisely! Instead, you have access to the emotions. He shares this space with you, in this time – but from a distance, across time. You become, in your way, a silent participant in Lundbye’s own internal world. Which, when you really think about it, is deeply touching. Editor: Yes, definitely! The diary page now seems so much richer; it has shifted from an artwork of private script to the universal language of emotions. I won’t read handwritten text the same way again. Curator: And that, my friend, is the best kind of artistic encounter. Shifting our own perceptions; the thrill of insight!