Illustration til Digt af H. P. Holst 1847 - 1871

This is F. Hendriksen’s “Illustration til Digt af H. P. Holst,” an engraving, created at an unknown date. The image is made through a laborious, indirect process. A drawing is transferred to a metal plate, then lines are incised into the surface, and finally ink is applied and the image printed onto paper. The final print is small, only 96 by 124 millimeters. The fineness of the lines, achieved with sharp tools and considerable skill, allows for a great amount of detail in the composition. Notice the texture of the soldiers' uniforms, the rendering of the smoke, and the depiction of the church in the background. Engraving was essential to the industrial revolution. The capacity to reproduce images easily was critical to mass media and consumer culture. Yet the craft involved, here as in so many other forms of production, often goes unacknowledged. By considering this, we recognize that even a seemingly straightforward work of art is the result of skilled labor, and reflects the political economy in which it was made.