Italiensk bondepige 1851

Vilhelm Kyhn made this etching, called “Italian Peasant Girl,” in 1852. Kyhn, a Danish artist, was part of a generation that looked to the countryside and to the "folk" for authentic national identity. Here, the image creates meaning through the visual codes of its time. Italy, newly unified, was often seen as both a classical idyll and a land of peasants. This image, made for a Danish audience, exoticizes and romanticizes Italian rural life. The woman’s gaze is averted, her head covering suggests modesty, and her youth implies innocence. The print also speaks to the institutional histories of art. Kyhn, who believed that Danish art should reflect Danish life, eventually founded a school of painting to further this nationalist project. The historian can use sources like travel writing, popular fiction, and exhibition records to understand how art participated in the social and political debates of its time. Art always reflects a particular social and institutional context.