The Daily Valdemar No. 3: March 15

Valdemar Andersen, full-page for the satirical magazine Plat'Menagen, 1909.

"My, the damn running about here lately!"

Today's Valdemar Andersen is a special favorite of mine. Valdemar was seldom humorous in any sense of cracking a joke. His humor was of a much softer, less direct kind. In this one, however, the sharpness of the curved line of the polar bear's neck has the timing of a one-liner.

The curve of the neck is mirrored in the flinging off water. The third claw on the back paw is daintily hovering in the air moving in the opposite direction towards us in that (s)he is actually climbing while looking back. The climbing, the curved line of the neck and the head rounding off the movement are drawn with firsthand intimacy of how a polar bear moves. Copenhagen Zoo was next door to Valdemar's home and his primary source of inspiration. Not by any means a natural habitat, we would accentuate today, but he drew every animal with an appreciation of its personal peculiarities. We are on the side of the polar bear, not the quest of our fellow humans.

The ME, I was first! - no ME, it was MEEE!-quest to be the first to make it to the North Pole reached one of its culminations in 1908/09 with Frederik Albert Cook and Robert Peary respectively declaring to be the winner of the race for fame and recognition. Who did or did not is still a very long story.

Meanwhile the polar bear was there all along.

The reality of it all we know only too well to this day. Humans seem incapable of doing anything without leaving bottles and cans lying about. Including a booth selling groceries and an assortment  of poles planted about. The egotism is all abounding.

The Nordic lights are dancing like a string of music.