Sunday, 20 November 2011

Hans Christian Andersen statue in Copenhagen

This memorial statue to Hans Christian Andersen was created not long after his death by August Saabye in 1880. The base is decorated in reference to his fairy tales. Andersen is generally regarded as the great literary genius of the Danish Golden Age, perhaps even outshining Søren Kierkegaard. To quote Andersen in Denmark is almost akin to quoting Shakespeare in England. Regarded as much more than a children’s writer, his “fairy tales” are seen as ambiguous, clever, philosophical, theological, and poetic, especially when read in the original language. The writer is shown sitting with a book in his hands.

The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen (1838) - one of my favourite fairy tale ever
http://hca.gilead.org.il/wild_swa.html

Kai Nielsen's sculpture The Water Mother

Kai Nielsen's sculpture The Water Mother in the winter garden of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen
It's been builted in 1921

Carl Jacobsen, the Danish beer magnate who commissioned the Little Mermaid statue, also founded the Copenhagen Glyptotek. The central rotunda at the Glyptotek is called the Winter Garden, filled with sunlight and subtropical plants.

The Water Mother depicts a woman with fourteen squirming, foetus-like babies crawling up from the water to suck the life force out of her. The baby with the bizarrely big head, sitting precociously upright on the mother's arm and holding an apple, is supposed to be Venus.

Kai Nielsen was born on 26 November 1882 in Svendborg, the son of Christian Nielsen, a watchmaker, and his wife Ane Marie. At 15 he became an apprentice painter but was artistically inclined and began to paint landscapes and portraits. At the same time he studied at the technical school in Svendborg where he was taught moulding by Edvard Eriksen,later famous for creating The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen