Art and a castle

The hotel I’m staying in has a lot to recommend it. It is not far from the main Copenhagen station, my room has an excellent shower, and they don’t clean up every day. This last may not seem important but, I have always worried about how much extra washing daily cleaning requires. Environmentally, it has to be better.

Another nice thing is the personalised mirror in the bathroom.

Not that I spent a lot of time admiring the reflective messages. This morning I was up and out and heading for the Metro in order to visit the National Art Gallery or SMK as it’s more correctly called.

The Metro, while very convenient to the hotel, was very crowded. Mirinda would no have caught it. It was the Sardine Special. Given I’m quite a lot made up of sardine, I managed to squeeze in and last the five stops before being spat out at Østerport at the beginning of Østre Anlæg, a park full of lagoons.

I was a bit early, so I popped up a hill to admire the work of Danish sculptor Louis Hasselriis (1844-1912). He is known for his small sculptures, but this is pretty massive. In fact, it used to out the front of the Art Gallery, but they decided it wasn’t good enough, so they plonked it on top of a hill overlooking the building instead.

I think it’s pretty magnificent but, then again, what would I know? The art gallery is also pretty impressive so maybe the size of the monument was just too much.

Anyway, I managed to avoid a massive school group and flashed my Copenhagen Card (an excellent investment) and headed into the art. And what a lot of art there was. I was there for a couple of hours and still didn’t see everything. But, what I did see, was amazing.

The gallery has some extraordinary works, including an excellent St Sebastien…

…an amazing Lot and his daughters, after half the act…

…and some delightful Fauvist pieces in the late French gallery.

I could type on for ages about the glories within the Danish National Gallery but, I’ll just leave it with my favourite piece. Which needs a slight introduction.

The painting is quite small, but I was struck by the face of the bull. It made me look longer and then laugh, as I read the title and studied the picture a little more closely.

Nicolai Abildgaard was an interesting chap and, interestingly, his Wiki entry describes him as not well known outside Denmark. Which is true. I mean, I’d never heard of him. Whatever, I think his painting is quite funny.

Speaking of bulls, I saw the skeleton of an auroch later in the day…but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

I had intended to visit another art gallery but, honestly, the SMK was so vast and there were so many works to admire that I was, pretty much, arted out. I decided, instead, to wander across the road and visit Rosenborg Castle.

The castle was built as a country seat by Christian IV in the early 17th century. Country seat? It was obviously a lot different then because now it’s not that far from the centre of Copenhagen.

The thing is, it’s full of lots of art. Though, of course, it’s a castle and has lots of rooms to wander around and three floors of royal stuff to gawp at.

To be completely honest, I found it a bit depressing. The amount of ivory, gold and priceless bits and pieces made me despair. I couldn’t help but think about the poor at the time and how these people, who were no more or less than the peasants, could hoard such treasure and watch their subjects starve.

Or maybe it’s just me.

A lot of people were wandering around the castle giving great gusts of oohs and ahhs at the opulence. And, to be fair, I joined in the general admiration for the scores of miniatures on display. And, obviously, the ivory sculptures are extraordinary but how can you ignore the number of elephants that had to die to provide a king with something fancy?

Of course, another part of me is sort of glad that someone was wealthy enough to pay the best crafts people to make such beautiful objects but…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

The castle is pretty amazing, if you ignore the ivory. There’s one room, the first room you enter, that is being completely renovated and, in a rare occurrence, the visitor gets to see what it looks like underneath all the paintings and panelling, ceiling and flooring. That, I thoroughly enjoyed. With no reservations.

Anyway, I’m getting a tad concerned that this entry is getting a bit too long. After the castle, I went to the Danish National History Museum, the main reason I came to Copenhagen. It was so good that I’ve decided to visit again tomorrow so, it might be best if I write about it then.

Dinner was a slight affair and, I was in bed quite early, watching sport and drifting in and out of consciousness before finally giving up and going to sleep.