"Troldmandens Selsomme Forestiling" 1787

This is H.L.S Winding's etching, "Troldmandens Selsomme Forestilling." Winding created this print sometime between 1750 and 1831, a period of immense social change, witnessing among other things the American and French Revolutions. Here, Winding gives us a man who appears to be a wizard, holding what seems to be a magic lantern. The lantern projects a scene of people on horseback. The wizard stands at the threshold between the real and the imagined, between our world and a projected one. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, enlightenment ideals of reason were increasingly challenged by the rise of romanticism, with its turn towards the mysteries of the imagination. The wizard and his lantern suggest the power of illusion and the potential for deception. In this historical moment, such a character might serve as a metaphor for art itself, as well as the human desire to believe in something beyond the material world. Do you find yourself captivated by the wizard’s show?