Changing of the Guard

Download3000 × 1825 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Erik Henningsen (Danish, 1855–1930)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 90 × 148.5 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

"Erik Henningsen's The Changing of the Guard (fig. 4; p. 82) might similarly be mistaken as documented fact. But this would be to overlook the artist's singular inventiveness, a tour de force of outdoor vibrancy and virtuoso rendition of contemporary detail akin to a reification of life through its masterful handling. The abrupt and bold cropping at the painting's edges (the solitary hand disappearing on the right), the momentum of the crowd flowing across the canvas, the juxtaposition of figures in close-up and long-short, combine to produce a mesmerising movie-still veracity which defies the cliché of Naturalism being devoid of imaginative interpretation; of painting whatever happened to be in front of the artist" (Nordic art, Groningen & München, 2012-13: p. 18)