Jeg tror jeg vil gaa ud i den vide Verden... 1928

Fritz Syberg made this pen and ink drawing, titled "Jeg tror jeg vil gaa ud i den vide Verden..." or "I think I will go out into the wide world...", sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The loose, expressive lines depict a rustic scene of chickens in a barn doorway, gazing out at the open landscape. Syberg was part of the Funen Painters, a Danish artistic community who turned away from academic styles in favor of naturalism and scenes of everyday life, often rural. Given the urbanization and industrialization of the time, these artists were making a conscious choice. Were they preserving a disappearing way of life? Idealizing it? We can look to the writings of the period and the artists themselves to get at the social dynamics involved in the imagery. Archival sources might reveal the commercial networks that enabled the popularity and distribution of these images through the art market. Studying the art of the Funen Painters can tell us a great deal about Danish national identity at the turn of the century and its institutional contexts.