Winter Night in a Forest 1853

Vilhelm Kyhn created this oil-on-canvas landscape with a winter motif. The atmospheric painting can be read in relation to the development of national Romanticism in 19th-century Denmark. As a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Kyhn occupied an institutional position of power in the art world. Simultaneously, he criticized the academy's exhibition policies, helping to establish alternative venues. This winter landscape, bathed in twilight, exemplifies a recurrent theme in national Romanticism: the beauty of the Danish countryside. In the 1800s, this focus was deployed to cultivate a sense of shared national identity. But who got to participate in this vision? Here, a horse-drawn sleigh moves along a snow-covered path, suggesting an idyllic scene. However, such sleigh rides would have only been accessible to the upper classes. To understand this painting more fully, we can consult sources from the period, such as estate inventories, to reveal whose experiences were reflected – or excluded – in visions of national identity. Ultimately, the meaning of art is always contingent on social and institutional context.