Brage 1827

Editor: This is J.L. Lund’s “Brage,” an 1827 pencil and engraving print at the Statens Museum for Kunst. It has such a delicate quality, almost ghostly. I'm drawn to the figure's raised hand. What do you see in this piece, especially concerning that gesture? Curator: The raised hand, especially in conjunction with the lyre, immediately evokes the classical figure of the orator, the poet, the bard. Brage, in Norse mythology, *is* poetry personified. This is Lund participating in a long tradition of visualising cultural memory. But consider, too, the medium - engraving. Isn't it interesting that printmaking is used to disseminate a figure whose very essence is linked to *oral* tradition? Editor: That's a great point about oral tradition meeting printmaking! It's like he's being memorialized in a new, reproducible way. Does that relate to the three faces sketched to the side? Curator: Precisely! They suggest multiple aspects, perhaps different stages of inspiration, different faces of poetry. It's almost as if Lund is trying to capture not just the likeness, but the very *idea* of Brage. Note also the classical, almost neoclassical style. Lund anchors Brage within the visual language of the Western canon, elevating him, giving him that weight of cultural legitimacy. Editor: So it's about more than just depicting a mythological figure, but really connecting Norse mythology to a wider cultural heritage. Curator: Exactly. And isn't that precisely what images do, at their best? They don't just reflect, they connect, they remind, they *re-present*. Editor: I never thought about it like that, seeing images as actively creating cultural links. Thank you for broadening my perspective! Curator: My pleasure. It's in these connections that images truly speak to us, even across centuries.