Good afternoon fellow cultural pursuers. I am running slightly behind with my blog this week once again due to excess amounts of work and continuing mental and physical recovery from vile and savage stomach bug which lasted ALL LAST WEEK. Having been imprisoned in my flat feeling like death for 6 days straight I am pretty impressed that I managed to do anything cultural this week at all let alone 2 things which is in fact what I achieved. I managed to pack a weeks worth of activities into one Sunday and attended TWO exhibitions and went to see a film yay me. On a side note you know something is seriously wrong with the world if you can see 2 different shows with pieces collated from across history and the globe for free then pay £15 to see Prince of Persia – WTF??? Was v entertaining though highly recommend it although not bloody Gemma Arterton or whatever she’s called who although very pretty with a healthy body image can’t act for shit.
Anyway, TWO exhibitions you say? Yes indeed-y. However, don’t fear I have decided to write about the first one only as I was slightly art saturated for the second – Indian Portraits 1560 – 1860 at the National Portrait Gallery – and definitely couldn’t do it justice. This is a real shame actually as it finishes in 5 days and was really rather wonderful – and free! – so recommend it to you all especially if you happened to see and enjoy (as much as I did) the Gardens of the Cosmos exhibition at the British Museum last year.
So, instead I will regale you all with tales of the now closed exhibition; Christen Købke; Danish Master of Light at the National Gallery. This was one of those admission free 2 room exhibitions they do which are about the perfect possible length for any exhibition – 30 mins, a trip to the shop and then you’re done – ideal. I attended with my fellow ex-courtauldian Nat who was similarly feeling his way blinkingly back into the light like me only his return to the real world was from a 2 month self inflicted architecture part 2 retreat. Poor boy. My previous weeks pursuit was accompanied by his lovely fiancé Emily so it was clearly the natural progression to go to this one with him. We both enjoyed it mightily.
Now, as usual I hadn’t really heard of Christen Købke before although was familiar with some of his rather beautiful paintings from elsewhere, although where exactly I am not sure worryingly. Here is a brief history of the man paraphrased from Wikipedia:
Anyway, TWO exhibitions you say? Yes indeed-y. However, don’t fear I have decided to write about the first one only as I was slightly art saturated for the second – Indian Portraits 1560 – 1860 at the National Portrait Gallery – and definitely couldn’t do it justice. This is a real shame actually as it finishes in 5 days and was really rather wonderful – and free! – so recommend it to you all especially if you happened to see and enjoy (as much as I did) the Gardens of the Cosmos exhibition at the British Museum last year.
So, instead I will regale you all with tales of the now closed exhibition; Christen Købke; Danish Master of Light at the National Gallery. This was one of those admission free 2 room exhibitions they do which are about the perfect possible length for any exhibition – 30 mins, a trip to the shop and then you’re done – ideal. I attended with my fellow ex-courtauldian Nat who was similarly feeling his way blinkingly back into the light like me only his return to the real world was from a 2 month self inflicted architecture part 2 retreat. Poor boy. My previous weeks pursuit was accompanied by his lovely fiancé Emily so it was clearly the natural progression to go to this one with him. We both enjoyed it mightily.
Now, as usual I hadn’t really heard of Christen Købke before although was familiar with some of his rather beautiful paintings from elsewhere, although where exactly I am not sure worryingly. Here is a brief history of the man paraphrased from Wikipedia:
Christen Schiellerup Købke (1810 –1848), was one of the best known artists belonging to the Golden Age of Danish Painting. Købke, a national romantic, painted portraits, landscapes and architectural paintings. Most of his portraits show friends, family members and fellow artists and found most of his motifs in his immediate surroundings and produced work renounced for their harmonious use of composition and colour. Almost forgotten in his own lifetime despite praise of various contemporaries, Købke had never been inundated with commissions yet is recognized today as one of the most talented among Denmark’s Golden Age painters and the most internationally renowned Danish painter of his generation.
So bit bad that I hadn’t heard of him but fuck it I haven’t heard of anyone – that £75 Student loan repayment coming out of my pay check each month really is a cruel mockery. However, I do know a small amount about some of his contemporaries such as Caspar David Frederick – who I LOVE - and others, and can definitely make up a lot of almost plausible sounding shit from that which I will now proceed to do. I will also supplement this heavily with untrustworthy internet sources.
The Golden Age of Danish painting refers to the first half of the 19th century which if I remember anything would encompass both Romanticism and Realism – I think, both of which are ace. Købke’s work seems to tick both these boxes in various ways. He militantly studied and sketched from the real world taking highly detailed preliminary studies for his pieces which he transferred directly to the surface of the canvas. This was dictated by his tutor the great Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg who was enormously influential to both Købke and his contemporaries. Despite travelling to Italy on scholarships from the Danish Academy his subject matter also tends to focus on the mundane and everyday surroundings of his home – a citadel just outside Copenhagen, and his canvases are populated with figures from every day life; cigar sellers, milkmaids and small boys throwing stones to name but a few.
This idealised version of reality is sort of like the Danish version of official, salon-friendly French Realism such as the work of Jules Breton who created images of idealised peasant life, unchanging and unthreatening, satisfying the contemporary taste for images of ‘real life’ peasantry without the controversy of artists such as Courbet:
Contemporary accounts suggest life at a citadel was rough and seedy but this doesn’t come through at all in Købkes work which instead makes his ‘home town’ seem tranquil and harmonious, half deserted in a sleepy happy sort of way. We are presented with the perfect image of provincial Danish life, simple and balanced and unchanging and thus it’s easy to see why his work was considered to be national romanticism – imbuing the everyday with the noble and spiritual.
The image above and the one below demonstrate his use of highly emotive colour which he used to create an idealised version of the natural world which is much more in tune with Romantic ideals. The concept of the emotive, intellectual landscape was a highly Romantic concept – the idea of nature as sublime, a harbinger of both tranquil beauty and raw emotion is half articulated in works such as this which use a palate of pinks and purples to suggest evening light. The painting below; View of Dosseringen near the Sortedam Lake Looking towards Norrebro demonstrates this. The painting seems ambiguous – is this boat returning or departing, what is the relationship of the women
It is really with his portraits that Købkes work seems to be more ‘Realist’. He tended to paint friends and family more than anything else, mainly because he didn’t receive many commissions. Instead we get images such as this of his own mother, a decidedly un-idealised image of a busy slightly careworn house wife (and apparently mother of 11!)
As well as these he did several portraits of fellow artists such as this fabulous one of Frederik Sødring with whom he shared a studio – love love love this pic it’s totally fab sexy and informal and I love the way you can see their different artistic stimulus and inspiration in the fragments stuck to the wall behind him such as prints or sketches of cows – very Danish. Doesn’t he have a nice face!?
Last but by no means least the exhibition had a fabulous array of his architectural pieces – especially those based on Frederiksborg Castle which he painted numerous times from various, increasingly daring viewpoints.
He also did a series of ‘character portraits’, which alas like usual I can’t find images of, which are rather beautiful and show the wrinkles, frowns and general un-idealised reality of everyday people. There is this fabulous one of a baker with pretzels and a cigarillo with most of the buttons in his flies undone hhahahaha – Købke grew up on the citadel because his father was master baker so there is a real sense of the familiar and affectionate in this pic:
As well as these he did several portraits of fellow artists such as this fabulous one of Frederik Sødring with whom he shared a studio – love love love this pic it’s totally fab sexy and informal and I love the way you can see their different artistic stimulus and inspiration in the fragments stuck to the wall behind him such as prints or sketches of cows – very Danish. Doesn’t he have a nice face!?
Last but by no means least the exhibition had a fabulous array of his architectural pieces – especially those based on Frederiksborg Castle which he painted numerous times from various, increasingly daring viewpoints.
The castle was a national landmark and was being rediscovered at this time by writers and artists as a relic of Denmark's glorious history. Here Købke really excelled in his depiction of light, space and a sense of endless flat Danish landscape dominated by sky – empty and epic. Here he shows an ability to use daring angles which turn the monumental castle into abstract shapes and planes of view. So minimal, classy and fabulous wish to own one of them BADLY!! And on that note I sign out for another week – stay classy San Diego. 