Illustration til Christian Winther, "Hjortens Flugt" 1898

Henrik Bornemann made this illustration to Christian Winther's "Hjortens Flugt" using an unspecified medium on paper. Bornemann’s illustration is charged with the cultural and political tensions of late 19th-century Denmark. We see this reflected in the artistic and literary interest in Romantic Nationalism, an intellectual movement that sought to define and celebrate a unique national identity. Bornemann’s choice to illustrate Winther's poem is a reflection of this movement. The illustration can be seen to embody the national romanticism with its subject matter, a deer by a forest lake in the sunset, with a fox in the foreground. The setting, a typical Nordic landscape, would appeal to nationalistic sentiments in Denmark at the time. Bornemann's artistic skills and his choice of subject matter contributed to the cultural and nationalistic expressions of the time. To understand the full social and institutional implications of this work, one might consult archives of the art academy, collections of national literature, and critical essays on Danish cultural identity.