CHAPTER II
MORE ABOUT COPENHAGEN; THE COPENHAGENERS’
COUNTRY GARDENS
Copenhagen, Denmark,
July 26, 191—.
My dear Cynthia:
You have probably noticed that I have not as yet mentioned the art museums of Copenhagen. That fact is due to the modesty of the amateur in the presence of the professional. However, as I know that you will want my “reaction,” I confess to having visited two museums of art. Thorwaldsen’s I visited yesterday. It is a huge, ugly, tomb-shaped building, constructed at the expense of the city of Copenhagen as a permanent home for the works of the greatest of Danish sculptors. And it is really a tomb as well as a museum, for Bertel Thorwaldsen, in whose honor it was erected, lies buried in the court under a great mass of dark ivy. As in ancient classical tombs, a frescoed border around the outside wall depicts scenes from the life of the entombed one. Among other events connected with Thorwaldsen’s successes is represented his triumphal return to Copenhagen in 1838, after the long, hard years of apprenticeship to his art in Rome. Above the main entrance is the gift of the late King Christian—a Victory reigning in her quadriga. This beautiful piece of bronze was designed by Thorwaldsen himself, but was executed by another Danish sculptor, Herman Bissen.
What impressed me most of all about the museum was the tremendous amount of work which Thorwaldsen turned off. There are scores and hundreds of sculptures, drawings and paintings by him. As you know, most of his subjects are classical—as would be expected of the founder of the neo-classical school. But there are really very few of his works for which I care. Thorwaldsen’s people do not look as if they had ever accomplished anything; they bear too few marks of life’s battles; they are too passive, too gentle, too restful. The “Christ,” I admit, possesses a benignance and serenity which is overmastering; and the bas-reliefs of “Night” and “Morning” are exquisite. But the draperies of some of his Greeks do look painfully like wash-boards. Judging from the “Lion of Lucerne,” Thorwaldsen was more successful with animals. The “Lion” is my favorite. He has kept his trust, has fought a good fight, and is dying grandly—but in anguish of mind because even the sacrifice of life itself was insufficient to save the lilies of France. However, I do not consider the “Lion” characteristic of Thorwaldsen’s work. Do you?
Unlike Thorwaldsen’s Museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which I also visited, had its origin in individual generosity. Its founder was Captain Carl Jacobsen, “Ph. D., Brewer,” who is the Carnegie and Rockefeller of Denmark. He is a great lover of art, and his country has profited accordingly. Jacobsen money has paid for the New and Old Glyptoteks, two of the finest art museums in Scandinavia. Probably you are shocked at the idea of the love of art being fostered by “beery” money. I was at first, I acknowledge, and I still wish that the “wherewithal” had been secured in some other way; but I have been assured that the Carlsberg brew is of a particularly pure quality—as beers go—and that the Jacobsens are really patriotic, public-spirited Danes.
The New Glyptotek is a handsome building occupying a whole city block. The interior is beautifully decorated with rare woods, colored marbles, and frescoes. And it contains collections of paintings and sculptures representing most of the countries of Europe. As you well know, I was never orthodox in my preferences among works of art—especially paintings. It was probably in consequence of this peculiarity that I was drawn to a canvas which most people would, I suppose, pass by. The picture is “Denmark,” by Elizabeth Jerichau-Baumann, and was painted more than sixty years ago. Denmark is represented by a young woman, strong, determined, and fearless, standing amidst sheaves of rye; in her left hand she bears Dannebrog, the red-and-white crusaders’ flag of the Danes, which she is prepared to defend with the two-edged sword grasped in her right.
“Denmark” by Elizabeth Jerichau-Baumann
Grave Monument by Rudolph Tegnér
The sculptures in the New Carlsberg are, I think, finer than the paintings. The French collection is the most complete to be found outside of France itself. It is not necessary to tell you that in plastic art France is far ahead of Denmark. Yet there were several Danish pieces for which I cared very much—some by Herman Bissen, and particularly some by Jens Adolf Jerichau. I was much attracted by the latter’s “Little Girl with a Dead Bird.” It is in white marble. The little girl, barefooted and simply dressed, is sitting upon a rock with the bird tenderly held between her hands; and upon her face is an expression of gentle pity which gives a peculiar charm to the whole figure. But, to me, the most pleasing of all the Danish sculptures was a grave monument by an obscure young artist, Rudolf Tegnér. It represents the mourning figure of a young woman, whose face is left buried in the original mass of white marble. There is an exquisite delicacy about the slender, drooping form to which no picture that I might send you could do justice. A similar figure, in bronze, marks the grave of the artist’s mother at Elsinore.
Perhaps you would be interested in learning how I spent yesterday, which was Sunday. Like all of my Danish days, this was crammed with new impressions. In the morning I attended services at Vor Frue Kirke—the Church of Our Lady. In this church are the greyish blue marble originals of Thorwaldsen’s “Christ and Apostles.” The statues are of heroic size and are exceedingly impressive. Besides myself, there were six other tourists viewing the church—five alert-looking boys and a middle aged man, evidently their tutor. One glance was sufficient to tell me that they were Americans. I, too, must have had a “Made-in-America” appearance, for before I had uttered a sound one of the boys who happened to stand near me while I was studying the “Christ,” began to address me in “American,” commenting intelligently upon the beautiful figure. The unassuming friendliness of the boy quite warmed my heart. When services began the party seated themselves in the rear of the room and took notes and read their guide-books for a time; and then tiptoed quietly out. I felt lonesome when they had gone, and decided to go cousin-hunting the very next day.
Like the vast majority of Scandinavian churches, Our Lady is State Lutheran. But the Scandinavians, though instinctively religious, are by no means regular church-goers; and summer Sundays in Copenhagen are more likely to be devoted to recreation than to formal worship. Consequently, the congregation was a mere scattered handful; most of the worshipers were old people who came early, wearing solemn expressions, and carrying prayer-books. The preacher was a little old man in black gown and white linen ruff, suggestive of pictures of Sir Walter Raleigh. From a lofty and magnificent pulpit, reached by a staircase, he preached his sermon. The solemn faces of the congregation had led me to expect a self-righteous, theological presentation containing conspicuous thanks to God that Danish State Lutherans are not as other men; but I was much relieved to hear a live human message, not read, but clearly and feelingly spoken, in which the pastor urged his hearers to lives of loving service to their fellow humans. I liked the little old pastor, and forgot that I was homesick for “my own United States.”
I think that you would have enjoyed the music, Cynthia, for it possessed a dignity and reserve conducive to reverence. You may be interested to learn that the choir was composed entirely of women, and that a woman played the pipe organ.
After the services were ended, I had luncheon in a restaurant close at hand; and then I went for a long, rambling walk, visiting some places which I had seen before and others that were new. I passed Runde Taarn again, bound for Kongens Nytorv, one of the finest squares of the capital, pleasant with shade trees, well-kept lawns, and an abundance of flowers, among which the cosmopolitan scarlet geranium seemed as much at home as in California. On the Nytorv is the Royal Theatre, an imposing Renaissance structure.
Twelve different streets lead out of the square. I made my exit by the most famous one, Bredgade (Broad Street), which for part of its length is lined with handsome shops. Copenhagen shopkeepers have a shrewd but gratifying way of keeping up the shades of their windows on Sundays, thus enabling the worldly-minded to enjoy gratuitously the beauty of the wares and to select the very articles which they would purchase were they rich. As I long since learned to ‘name the birds without a gun, to love the wood-rose and leave it on its stalk,’ I am particularly fond of this mental shopping; it is a pleasant pastime, devoid of the worry and wear of the physical kind. The display of antiques, pictures, and porcelains on Bredgade is unusually interesting. Antiques, in general, but rarely attract me—except as do curios in a museum—for many of them have little else than their age to recommend them; and age, in itself, is no virtue. Some of the old furniture, and the bronzes which I saw in the windows on Bredgade, were, however, very handsome.
But the paintings and the porcelains especially caught my eye. To my mind (and I believe you would agree with me), many of the works by young Scandinavian artists would hold their own against modern paintings in any European country. They are genuinely Scandinavian. It is such a satisfaction to know that the Scandinavian lands have really begun to make a distinct contribution to the art treasures of the world. And as for porcelain, I am simply mad over the Royal Copenhagen variety; it is almost as difficult for me to pass a display of this ware without stopping, and gazing, and lingering, as it is for a toper to resist a grog shop. The makers of the Copenhagen pieces are high-grade artists, and their work beggars my attempts at description. Much of the attractiveness seems to lie in the glaze; it is exquisite, and it gives to the delicate colors an appearance of remoteness and a subtlety of charm and refinement which seems almost to belong to the realm of the spiritual. Compared with the Royal Copenhagen, most other “China” impresses me as loud and bizarre. But the prices of the pieces which I should have wanted to buy, had I been anything more than a mental shopper, would pay for my whole Scandinavian tour; hence, I am not likely to carry home with me very extensive samples of the ware.
In the course of my rambles I reached the Marble Church. This building was begun more than a century and a half ago, but lack of funds delayed its completion until within the last thirty years, when it was finished at the expense of Herr Tietgen, a philanthropic Danish banker. In architectural style and richness of material, this building contrasts strongly with Our Lady, which is really conspicuous by its plainness—except for Thorwaldsen’s sculptures. The Marble Church, as its name implies, is constructed primarily of marble; and it is crowned with a great dome—suggestive of Saint Paul’s in London—covered with copper partially gilded. A large number of busts and statues of ecclesiastics and saints also decorate the exterior. Outside, above the entrance, are the words, “Herrens Ord bliver evendelig” (The Word of God is everlasting). The main room beneath the dome is perfectly circular and is rich with wood-carvings, colored marbles, mosaics, paintings, and statues. There is a fortune of gold-leaf in the crucifixes and candle-sticks.
The guard at the door to whom I paid my entrance fee recommended the view from the dome and supplied me with a pair of opera glasses; so after viewing the interior I mounted to the top. This I accomplished by groping my way up a dark, narrow, winding stair-case, some parts of which were as dark as a pocket—and in the darkest part bumping squarely into a couple of women who were on their way down. As the Marble Church is quite a distance from Runde Taarn, I gained a new and different view of Copenhagen from its dome; and I also gained considerable information about the most important buildings from a friendly Danish lady whom I found at the top.
Amalienborgtorv, or square, which is near the Marble Church, was my next objective point. It is a stone-paved place, ungladdened by trees or grass or flowers, with a large bronze equestrian statue of Christian V in the center. On each of the four sides is a royal palace in rococo style, in which the king and queen and other members of the royal family reside during most of the year. When I crossed the Torv, soldiers in high, bearskin caps stood on guard at the street entrances—a sign that the king was in residence.
After Rosenborg, Amalienborg seemed so dreary and uninteresting—especially since common visitors get no glimpse of the interior—that I did not linger, but walked on to Grönningens Esplanade, where St. Alban’s, the first English church to be built in Denmark, peeps out with a charm peculiarly English from a clump of trees bordering an arm of the Baltic.
North of St. Alban’s is Langelinie, the most beautiful promenade in Copenhagen. To the left of the promenade is a park, and to the right lies the harbor, filled with all sorts of water craft bearing the flags of many nations, including our own “Old Glory,” which looked wondrous good to me. Great crowds of people—young and old, parents and children—dressed in their Sunday clothes, were passing to and fro upon Langelinie, all looking healthy and happy.
I returned through the beautiful, shady park. Upon the benches under the trees I noticed many women serenely chatting, their fingers busy with sewing, embroidery, or knitting. Would you call such a Sabbath occupation scandalous and unseemly? I must confess that I was more impressed with the women’s industry than I was shocked by their desecration of the day.
Farther on, I took a peep into the Citadel. It dates from the seventeenth century, and is of red brick, with tree-covered ramparts. Soldiers were standing on guard at the entrance, and were passing back and forth between the buildings. Unlike England and the United States, Denmark, I regret to say, requires military service of all of her ablebodied men. She maintains what is, in proportion to her population, a large standing army.
This morning, true to the resolution made at Frue Kirke, I called upon Cousin Lars. Cousin Lars is really my mother’s cousin, but as he has always been her favorite cousin he has seemed a sort of an uncle to me. Many years ago, when I was a tiny child, Cousin Lars spent several years in California, which he expected to make his permanent home; but his young wife suddenly died, and it was her dying request that he take their children back to the home land and rear them. This caused him to return to Denmark.
Cousin Lars still loves the United States, however, and, though “blood is thicker than water,” I really believe that he welcomed me more heartily as a Californian, recently “come over,” than as a cousin. For he quickly convinced me that I was thrice welcome—and caused me to regret keenly that I had delayed so long making known to him my presence in Copenhagen. He wished to send immediately to the hotel for my baggage; and without consulting me he asked his housekeeper to have a room prepared for my reception. But when I informed him that I was booked to sail from Copenhagen to-night he abandoned his plan, stipulating, however, that I was to be his guest upon my return.
I made my call early this morning in order to be sure to find Cousin Lars at home, for the Danes are fresh-air people and all who can afford to do so spend their afternoons in the city parks or in the country. And in consequence of my early call I enjoyed the pleasure of a real Danish home luncheon with my cousin. Yet it was not so genuinely Danish, after all, except the food, which, like all food I have tasted in Denmark, was good. The luncheon was really Danish-American, for Cousin Lars, in my honor, had the table set with the silverware bought years ago in the Far West, and at one end of the table he placed a little silk Dannebrog with the white cross on the red field, and on the other my own Stars and Stripes. As a sign that this was a very festive occasion, both flags were at the very tip-top of their masts. Our conversation was also Danish-American. At times we spoke Danish, my contribution being of a very bad quality; at others, we spoke “American,” Cousin Lars’ efforts showing rust for want of use; and, occasionally, when the borrowed languages seemed inadequate, we would resort to our own respective mother tongues and exchange remarks in Danish and American.
After luncheon I learned that Cousin Lars had planned to spend the afternoon in the country in his “garden,” and I urged that he execute the plan and take me along. He did, and I had such a pleasant, untouristlike time! We started on the street cars, but a strike of carmen interrupted our progress; then we walked the remainder of the way—as I preferred doing so to taking a carriage—and Cousin Lars called attention to the places of interest which we passed.
Near the outskirts of the city, a “folke skole,” or elementary public school, which was being repainted, caught my eye, and we went in to explore. This was one of the free schools to which the poor people send their children. The class rooms were well lighted and well ventilated and generally comfortable. In fact, the building pretty closely resembled those of our own elementary schools. A few good pictures, including portraits of Hans Christian Andersen and Bertel Thorwaldsen, were on the walls. Upon the second floor were completely equipped departments for the teaching of cooking and sewing; and in another part of the building was a manual-training laboratory.
Farther out along the street I noticed a bread-line of children. A woman was handing out generous-looking sandwiches to twenty or thirty little people as they filed past her in an irregular line. These were children, Cousin Lars said, whose parents were not able to supply them with proper food. While school was in session they were supplied with luncheons at public expense; and now, during vacation, one of their teachers, a noble-hearted young woman, had assumed the task of keeping the active young bodies somewhat adequately nourished. She herself is poor, but she solicits money from private individuals with which to purchase food; and this food she personally distributes daily. I am glad to be able to say, however, that such cases of want are comparatively rare. The splendid spirit of cooperation shown by the Danish people in their industrial life has produced a degree of prosperity which is truly remarkable, in view of the resources of the country.
And now for the garden—for we soon reached it. It is a tiny plat of ground of about four thousand square feet, which Cousin Lars has planted to the choicest kind of flowers, selected with the view to securing an unbroken succession of bloom, beginning with the earliest varieties and ending with the latest. There are also a few shade trees, and along the fence are berry bushes. In the rear of the lot is an arbor covered with a picturesque tangle of woodbine and climbing rose; and close beside it is a one-roomed bungalow, so overgrown with clematis, now in bloom, that the little building looks like a giant purple bouquet. The bungalow room is furnished with a table, a couch, two or three comfortable chairs, a case containing books and magazines. Attached like a barnacle to the outside of the building is a tiny kitchenette, containing an oil stove and a stock of provisions.
We were hungry, of course, after our walk, so as soon as we arrived we proceeded to prepare a luncheon. I made coffee on the oil stove while Cousin Lars fished all sorts of delectable canned and preserved foods from the shelves in the barnacle and arranged them in artistic confusion upon the table in the arbor—which is the dining room of the establishment. And while we consumed the coffee and the delectables Cousin Lars told me about the “garden.” It is his play place; he goes out to work among his flowers almost every afternoon; and he and his sons quite frequently spend their Sundays there, having a picnic luncheon in the arbor. Until a few years ago, he had a house in town set in the midst of a large garden; but when the din of the growing city became too offensive, he sold the place, rented his present top flat on a blind and, consequently, quiet street, and secured this garden—an arrangement which he likes much better. Copenhagen is very decidedly a city of flat-dwellers.
But the interesting and really splendid fact connected with the garden is that Cousin Lars’s is only one of fifteen hundred little gardens, all of which have sprung up around Copenhagen within the past ten years. The land is leased by those who work it from the commune of Copenhagen or from private individuals. Plats of as few as sixteen hundred square feet may be rented from the commune for one-half to three-fourths of an öre per square foot annually. Land owned by private individuals rents a little higher. Water is piped to the lots by the owners, who also furnish free wheelbarrows for use in gardening. Several tiny lots form a block, as in a regular city, and between the blocks run diminutive streets about ten feet wide. Some of the narrow passageways have such picturesque names as “Rosen Allé,” “Odins Allé,” and the like. The Christian Danes have not completely forgotten the gods of their fathers, you see. The blocks, in tracts of ten acres or so, are surrounded by the owners with strong open-work fences; and each family holding land within the tract is supplied with a key to the big gate. Over the gate appears the name of the tract, which is sometimes “fancy,” like “Flora” and “Iris.”
The renters fence their own little plats to suit their inclinations and pocket-books; and they build their houses after the same fashion. Since the “gardens” are merely daytime and fresh-air institutions, generally the buildings are one-roomed and tiny. In fact, they look as if they might be the playhouses of an army of parent-tired little children who had run away and set up for themselves. Many of the structures are very cheaply built. One “playhouse,” which caught my attention, was an abandoned street car masquerading under a luxuriant mantle of vines; but it was every bit as much of a success as an orthodox bungalow, for in the tiny yard several flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked children were shouting and playing. Instead of house numbers, the owner’s names, as a rule, appear over the doors—generally the names of women; but here and there I again noticed “fancy” names, such as “Johannes Haab” (Johanne’s Hope) and “Christines Lyst” (Christine’s Joy), which suggest how much the simple little recreation places mean to their owners.
Aside from the narrow walks, every square foot of soil in each plat is just crammed with green things growing. In many cases where the houses indicated poverty, the ground was largely planted to vegetables—one garden was a single large potato field. Since the rent amounts to only a few dollars per year, those who wish to do so can more than pay their expenses by their vegetables; and in addition they have all of the fun of the wholesome, out-of-door life. But most of the plats have been converted into charming flower gardens; and of all of these Cousin Lars’s is the most worthy of the prize.
Though many sorts and conditions of people are represented by the fifteen hundred plats, most of the renters are poor “working people.” As a rule, the families pass their Sundays in the gardens, and in many cases the mother and children are there also during most of the long summer days. After work hours the father joins them for supper in the “playhouse,” and later the whole happy family returns to the city to sleep.
I had heard of such “gardens” before; they have them in Germany, and call them “Lauben,” or “Gärtchen”; and I was delighted at the chance to see them in detail for myself. Now, I only wish that we might have them around the great, congested cities in the United States. The population would be so much healthier, both mentally and physically, if gardening could be substituted for idle gossip, cheap society twaddle—or worse. As Cousin Lars remarked on the way home, such wholesome, out-of-door recreation would go far towards settling many problems arising from city life.
After we had explored the place to my heart’s content, we walked to the end of a car line and rode back to the city. Now I am again in my room in the hotel, finishing up this letter to you, preparatory to my departure to-night. Cousin Lars and his sons are to be at the pier to wave good-by, so I shall not feel that I am in a “far country.” Whither do you suppose that I am bound, Cynthia?