105 / 165
large amount of the exhibited views are engravings and etchings; for the major
part of these it can be said that they have been done by professional engravers
(who did not draw the original), working after other artists' models. In this pro
cess of transference there are, of course, many possibilities of errors — the engraver
may misunderstand, simplify or just reduce the quality of the motif. It is only
necessary to compare Bruun's drawings with the engravings by Hans Qvist (see
for instance cat. nos. 41 and 67) in order to realize how much can be lost in the
process - it goes without saying that the opposite can also happen. Some of the
views were printed in books; often the coming into existence of the books was
a slow process, and thus there was the risk of the engravings being dated before
they came out. In the case of Pontoppidan's Atlas dated models were used several
times, and hence many illustrations are not representative of the time of the pub
lishing. Especially in the older days some of the engravings were copied in infinite
numbers, they "wandered" and could be found in Germany, Holland, France, Italy,
etc., and on their long expeditions it was forgotten that they had been dated for
a long time. In this way van Wick for example (cat. no. 3), was used far into the
next century, and also the engraving of the siege from 1658 by Dahlberg (cat. no.
11) exists in an incomplete shape as the city profile beneath a map published by
Matthias Seutter in the 18th century.
Yet another source of errors is frequently found: the mixture of reality and
projects. Often the artist knew of projects and building activities that had been
started, and he then drew a building, for instance, in accordance with the approved
plan which was perhaps to be changed later. This is true of Marselis' reproduction
of the Chancellery (cat. no. 27). Leclerc's splendid vedutes of Christiansborg also
have certain project-like characteristics, but furthermore they depict the Palace
and its surroundings highly idealized (cat. nos. 56—59). In Tuscher's view down
through Størrestræde (cat. no. 37) the entire left part of the picture is purely
imaginary and only added in order to complete the view and make it more beauti
ful. A painter like J. P. Lund also treated his motifs very freely, and among his
works one also comes across the "capriccio" — where the topographical coherence
has disappeared completely.
One has to go far back into the history of pictorial art to find the first reproduc
tion of a town or a building, but it took quite some time before the city as a motif
advanced from what could be called the urban background and to becoming an
independent motif. Like many other branches of the art of painting that of the
view, too, originates in religious painting — the same is also true of portraiture,
9
*
99