Siddende nøgen dreng, der spiller på fløjte 1892

Rasmus Harboe sculpted this nude boy playing the flute in Denmark. Although undated, its style suggests it was made in the late 19th or early 20th century. Here we see a common trope from the history of Western art, a boy or youth representing innocence and a connection to nature. The flute reinforces this idea; a simple instrument suggesting pastoral leisure, far from the concerns of the city or the demands of modern life. But by Harboe's time, the countryside was no longer so separate from the city. The industrial revolution brought social changes to the whole of Europe, with Denmark feeling those changes acutely. Harboe would have been trained in the Danish Royal Academy, which had a strong bias towards conservative depictions of idealized figures. This sculpture seems caught between the old world and the new, an artist looking to the past while living in the present. Understanding art means diving into the archives. We can find out more about the artist, the institutions he worked with, and the cultural forces at play in Denmark at the time.