Illustration til Christian Winther, "Chresten og Lene" 1889 - 1926

This is Waldemar Bøhme’s Illustration til Christian Winther, "Chresten og Lene," and it’s at the SMK in Copenhagen. Look at all that ink work! I can only imagine him hunched over a table with a crazy tiny nib, slowly building up the image. I can feel him, in a way, trying to make a world. A rural idyll, a stork in flight, all of it so carefully rendered. When I look at that stork, I think about other artists, like Audubon, also obsessed with birds. But Bøhme is different: less scientific, more like a daydream. There’s a quaintness to his vision, something so deeply rooted in place, specifically Denmark. The textures are incredible. He is using the tools of his time to create a feeling, to capture the essence of a memory, a longing. And that’s what art is, isn’t it? Trying to grab onto something that’s always just out of reach.