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The Prison of Copenhagen
View through National Gallery of Denmark
Rørbye’s moralising depiction of street life in Copenhagen strikes an improving note with its architectural frame alone. With its forbidding aspect, C.F. Hansen’s prison struck fear of the cost of any crime into citizens. In the background a young man is asking an older moneylender for a loan, while another points tellingly to the debtor’s prison behind him. The young dandy in the middle gazes lustily at the young mother to the right. Depictions of life within the town walls were popular at the time. Typical characteristics of the genre included a plethora of types familiar from everyday life and moralising narratives rather than documentary accounts. Such art allowed the affluent to confirm their own moral superiority in images ensconced between family portraits, safely secluded from actual events.
Title: The Prison of Copenhagen
Description:
Rørbye’s moralising depiction of street life in Copenhagen strikes an improving note with its architectural frame alone.
With its forbidding aspect, C.
F.
Hansen’s prison struck fear of the cost of any crime into citizens.
In the background a young man is asking an older moneylender for a loan, while another points tellingly to the debtor’s prison behind him.
The young dandy in the middle gazes lustily at the young mother to the right.
Depictions of life within the town walls were popular at the time.
Typical characteristics of the genre included a plethora of types familiar from everyday life and moralising narratives rather than documentary accounts.
Such art allowed the affluent to confirm their own moral superiority in images ensconced between family portraits, safely secluded from actual events.
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