Some Danish Culture

When the pastry tour concluded and we bid Simon farewell, we decided to make our way back towards our place. The weather was still holding but rain was threatening. We noticed what we thought was a park ahead, but it turned out to be a cemetery, one of the most beautiful cemeteries we had ever seen. It was called Holmens Kirkegård and it was full of beautiful trees (and gravestones).

We then walked through another park called Osterbro Anlæg towards SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. We got tickets and spent the next couple of hours looking through their collections. This gallery has the nation’s collection of art, comprising of more than 200,000 pieces. Spanning more than seven hundred years, the collection tells the story of how Denmark has changed through the ages. Initially a major political power, Denmark later transitioned from being an absolute monarchy into a small national state, ultimately becoming a modern democracy.

We started with their French collection with art from 1900 to 1930, which included works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and Modigliani. In this collection you can see very different works by the same artists. Many of the artists tried out different expressions and techniques. Common to the very diverse works is that they attracted much attention in their time for their contributions to how modern art ought to be. This collection is largely due to Johannes Rump, an engineer and art collector, who during the 1910’s and 1920’s gathered one of the finest collections of works by Matisse, that he donated to the museum in 1928.

We then wandered through the Danish and Nordic art collection 1750 - 1900, which has around 400 paintings. There are works by Nicolai Ablildgaard, C.W. Eckersberg, Jens Joel, L.A. Ring, P.S. Krøyer, Christen Købke and Vilhelm Hammershøi.

The European Art Collection 1300 - 1800, contains works from the Middle Ages through to the Enlightenment period, including paintings by Andrea Mantegna, Tiziano Vecellio, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Peter Paul Ruebens and Rembrandt van Rijn.Read more