The Battle-Painter Jørgen Sonne in his Studio

Blunck has depicted fellow artist Jørgen Sonne at work, set among artistic disarray, humorously demonstrating the challenges that young, struggling artists face. As a battle-painter Sonne must paint uniformed soldiers, weapons, horses and instruments, but being short of funds he must use substitutes such as a scarecrow-like figure instead of a real soldier and a horse skull instead of a horse. The artist must rise above the shortcomings of reality to create his motif. We do not see what Sonne is painting, but presumably his genius (as they said at the time) lets him produce a perfect work of art. Wilhelm Bendz painted a comment on his friend’s work: it shows Blunck standing in front of a mirror to assess his sketch for this painting.