Forarbejde til Gablerne i Brunde 1919

Editor: Okay, next up we have "Forarbejde til Gablerne i Brunde," a drawing created with pen and ink in 1919 by Niels Skovgaard. It depicts a chaotic scene with horses, carts, and a rather dramatic fiery wheel in the sky. There's an urgency here, an almost frantic energy. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It feels like a glimpse into a fever dream, doesn't it? That wheel of fire, perhaps a fallen star or a burning cartwheel, instantly injects the scene with mythic weight. And those frantic horses! Skovgaard captures their fear with such visceral linework; you can almost hear their hooves pounding. I see a society, rattled, fleeing from an uncertain doom, but doom mixed with fairytale; there’s definitely something very “ Brothers Grimm” about it. Do you get a sense of a story being told, or is it just pure, unadulterated chaos to you? Editor: I definitely get the narrative sense – there is that sense of dark foreboding you often feel in old folktales. It almost reminds me of a biblical scene. Curator: Precisely! And consider the time it was created - 1919, right after the devastation of World War I. Maybe this fiery omen reflects the societal anxiety and the shattered certainties of the time? Think about the stark contrast: meticulously drawn horses against this otherworldly element… Skovgaard uses these visual jolts to tap into deeper anxieties, turning a landscape into a stage for existential drama. It’s beautiful and unsettling. Editor: It's amazing how much history can be embedded in a drawing that, on the surface, looks like something out of a storybook. It's like the landscape is mirroring the internal turmoil of the era. Curator: Exactly! And the artist has harnessed this emotional landscape perfectly with something seemingly simple, a pen and some ink. Editor: I’ll certainly see fairytale illustrations with a new perspective from now on. Thanks!