Tingvalla sletten 1846

Curator: Standing before us is Emanuel Larsen's 1846 drawing, "Tingvalla sletten," currently held at the SMK, Statens Museum for Kunst. Crafted with pencil, it embodies the Romantic landscape tradition. Editor: My first thought is—vast. A landscape stripped bare, rendered in such delicate strokes it feels like a memory fading. A landscape with these people traveling almost like souls to somewhere Curator: It’s fascinating how Larsen utilizes a medium as unassuming as pencil to evoke such expansiveness. He creates an environment of openness on paper and focuses on form through these dark almost etched marks that carve depth, like the dark lines within those hills. I wonder about the access and cost of certain pigments during that time and location. Editor: Those hills feel brooding somehow, almost guarding this landscape but those figures, tiny travelers on a nondescript road create so much emotion and the romantic movement certainly has strong narrative. And just look at that band of travelers how do you describe what is conjured Curator: Narrative certainly shapes the viewing. Looking closer, you can trace the artist’s hand, studying how pressure creates lighter and darker patches and how Larsen chose such humble materials given it’s romantic tradition but at the same time is using a common implement such as a pencil. I question if this would ever transcend art and merge into industrial applications for the general consumer. Editor: Exactly. It feels like the art is in that choice, that intimacy of labor and materials that romantic movement and even in its stark simplicity, there's a wild, untamed quality to this vista and Larsen clearly evokes something grand through simple tools. Curator: Yes, by tracing the tools and social implications we have an appreciation and clearer narrative through the history of that time, that simple implements had so much expressive potential to artists, so easily. It helps to expand how artistic movements merge through process to reach an emotional viewing through us all. Editor: What a way to remind us all, and that a romantic view, exists within everyone using what we have is always there for exploration of new emotions within art and labor practices. A humbling landscape really.