Illustration til "Fugl Phønix" i H.C. Andersen, "Eventyr og Historier", Bind 2 1870 - 1873

Curator: Oh, how sweet! There's an air of serene melancholy here. Editor: Indeed. This illustration by H.P. Hansen, dating from around 1870 to 1873, accompanies H.C. Andersen's "Fairy Tales and Stories," specifically the tale of "The Phoenix Bird". It is a print rendered with pen and ink, currently held at the SMK. It looks like a genre scene to me, miniature scale with line work typical of the Romantic style, which focuses primarily on narrative and figuration. Curator: I'm particularly drawn to the mother’s contemplative pose. She appears both present and utterly lost in thought while looking down at her peacefully sleeping infant, the rays shining out over it. But the light source does feel a little bit uncanny. What's with the beams? Editor: I see the radiance surrounding the baby less as light, but more as symbolic of something— the extraordinary, almost industrial attention the mother places upon her labor: her own child-making and its physical consequences! That line and pen would become associated with commercial printing a little while after the date that Hansen made this print makes it almost seem prescient, in this sense! The attention placed upon what is traditionally female work and subject feels radically updated when considered as just one of many commodities in a future marketplace. Curator: I can appreciate how the artistic execution reinforces themes present in Andersen's story. But isn’t the tenderness important too? I sense longing…maybe even fear that something so innocent might someday change. I mean look, it looks like an abandoned toy laying next to the cradle and her sewing kit and sewing resting idly. Editor: Ah, yes, perhaps the very act of portraying such delicate affection and innocent joy, here and now, becomes Hansen’s own phoenix call? In any case, I feel as though the materiality really serves this image well: there are stories held within. Curator: And isn't that always the case? What remains now feels…prescious. Editor: I completely agree. It leaves you pondering long after you've left it!