Storke 1810 - 1848

Curator: Immediately, there's an arresting gentleness in Christen Købke's "Storke." It's deceptively simple. Editor: It is. The sketch, created sometime between 1810 and 1848, feels like a page torn from a naturalist's journal. Storks, for many cultures, are tied to notions of birth and new life—considering Købke’s historical context, what resonances could that have held? Curator: Well, given his later artistic style, one can certainly see here a younger man finding his hand. There’s a lovely immediacy, the stork in profile gazing with what I want to call, endearingly, ‘surprise’ from the sheet! Editor: The use of pen, ink, and pencil lends itself to that ephemeral feeling— a quick study rather than a pronouncement, perhaps. But, within art history, these casual sketches of commonplace animals were also, indirectly, exercises in asserting human dominion, right? To capture, even on paper, becomes a symbolic possession. Curator: You might very well be right. What’s interesting is, Købke hasn’t tried to overly beautify. The materials serve the subject directly. Those brownish stains on the paper even make the scene seem somehow organic. As if the very earth has leant itself to the scene. Editor: I agree that this connects with a powerful artistic lineage where animals can often stand in as symbols within shifting political landscapes. Købke painted this in a time of great transformation, with complex national and class dynamics coming to a head in Europe and Scandinavia. How might the symbol of the stork play into it? Curator: Gosh. Maybe these aren’t just studies of birds, they’re quiet metaphors patiently awaiting birth! Still, to my mind, more simply: it’s an ode to nature's subtle elegance. Editor: I see this sketch as evidence of broader societal dynamics. But then, I think maybe the beauty lives within the recognition that both readings—personal and political—are possible at once.