Word: danish
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Bush-Reisinger Museum. Through April 24. "Danish Paintings of the Nineteenth Century from the Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr." Features works by several masters of Danish...
...many, Danish culture reached its breath-taking zenith in the perfection of a starchy breakfast snack with a tangy fruit-flavored filling. And there's always Carlsberg. While the company's marketing division assesses Carlsberg as "probably the best lager in the World," and danishes are unquestionably the finest starchy breakfast snacks money can buy, having seen the exhibition of Danish painting at the Fogg, I don't plan to throw out my Goyas, Cezannes, and Van Goghs to make room for their Danish contemporaries. If you've never heard of any Danish painters, don't panic. The collection...
...considerable charm of the show lies not in the half-baked reiteration of wider European themes and styles, but in its uniquely Danish elements. Khyn's View from the Rectory Garden in Greve with the Churchtower (1877) evokes a typically Danish village idyll. The lively interplay between light and shadow, clear sky and clouds, and buildings and vegetation lends the work an engaging dynamic element. The works of Vilhelm Hammershoi are the jewel in Loeb's crown. At first glance, his interiors appear simple a serene; close inspection reveals a sparse and tense atmosphere. Hammershoi relentlessly emphasizes doors, windowframes, skirting...
...great deal. Next to these delightful works hang the frumpy Still Life with Pineapple (1833) by Jensen, a hackneyed anecdotal painting by Marstand, and the slightly pat impressionism of the Anchers. These uninspiring works do not undermine the exhibition, because it aims precisely to illustrate the tenor of Danish art in the nineteenth century, even through its less inspirational phases. However, such an aim does not provide sufficient focus for an exhibit, even on a relatively modest scale. The collection appears electric, a higgledy-piggledy romp through an era of artistic flux and diversity. The viewer does not find Danish...
Part of the responsibility for this failing must fall on Ambassador Loeb, who has assembled an amateur, private collection rather than definitive scholarly statement on Danish painting. But Peter Nisbet, the curator of the Busch-Reisinger, should have made a more coherent selection from Loeb's collection. With some nobel exceptions, nineteenth century Danish painting cannot sustain an exhibition on aesthetic genius alone...