Vestjyske landskaber 1843

Dankvart Dreyer made this landscape sketch of West Jutland using pencil on paper. Dreyer was working during a time of growing national consciousness in Denmark. Artists turned to the landscape to define and celebrate a distinctly Danish identity. But whose identity was being celebrated? Dreyer himself came from humble origins, his father was a gardener, and this perhaps gave him a different perspective on the land and the people who lived there. Here we see a spare, almost stark landscape, with its open fields. The drawing's unromantic portrayal reflects the lives of the rural working class. Dreyer, through his art, seems to be asking us to consider what it means to belong to a place, and who gets to define that sense of belonging. The work emphasizes the ordinary, offering a vision of Denmark rooted in the soil and the lives of its inhabitants.