Georg Brandes at the University of Copenhagen

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Artist: Harald Slott-Møller (Danish, 1864–1937)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 94.8 × 82.2 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) was the absolute leading Dan-ish literary critic around 1900. His lecture series “Main movements within 19th c. liter-ature”, launched in 1871, was seminal. He called on artists to address their own time – to “put issues up for discussion.” Several writers and a few painters did so. A new social awareness emerged among artists.

An admirer of Brandes, Harald Slott-Møller did not paint him as he looked in 1889, but as a young critic giving lectures in 1871. Brandes was regarded as the key figure of the Cultural Radicalism movement and had many followers, but also attracted vicious attacks, sometimes of an anti-Semitic nature. He continues to divide opinions today. He became in-ternationally acclaimed in his own day, and his death in 1927 was front page news in the world press.