"En blind sanger i Alicante" 1864

Jacob Kornerup made this etching of a blind singer in Alicante in 1864. It captures the daily life of a busker in a Spanish coastal city. The image creates meaning through visual codes, cultural references, and historical associations. Kornerup was Danish, but traveled extensively and depicted scenes from everyday life in other countries. Alicante was, and still is, a port city with a strong tradition of street music. Such cultural and geographical factors would have influenced the artwork, as well as the social and economic structures of the time that meant some people had to rely on begging and street performance to survive. The image might be seen as commenting on those social structures, suggesting that not everyone enjoyed the same opportunities. As historians, we can research such topics in archives, libraries, and online resources to understand the social and institutional contexts of this artwork. Art is always contingent on its social and institutional context.