The Daily Valdemar No. 30: April 11

Valdemar Andersen, sketch of Juliane with their son Ib, 1908.
Private collection.

Today's moment of calm is the attentiveness to that one instant.

Valdemar has drawn Juliane bending over their toddler son. We recognize her on her high cheekbones and sharp jawline. She is helping the little Ib to drink from a glass, while presumably keeping him still to avoid him choking on what he is drinking. Valdemar would have been struck by the simplicity of the lines of their combined activity and it is a fresh take on the subject of mother and child. It is practical of nature and less Madonna with the infant Christ and yet it is the very same concept of protection and adoration with the foreshortening of her body enveloping him at all sides while he remains at the center.

Valdemar inked in what he had hurriedly done in pencil. The ink makes it sharper and simpler to accentuate the structure of the two together. They are about 5 cm. tall and kept at hand for inspiration, which came of use that very summer, when he drew a scene just outside of the city center. 

Valdemar Andersen, for the daily Politiken, July 1908.

We are presented with scattered wrapping paper from the packed lunches along with emptied beer bottles, so we know this is less about fashion than having a day off from a hard working life. 

There is certainly conviviality all around and to the left we recognize the mother and child with a giant of a waiter carrying beer right behind them. The one child is connected to the row of children and all of them form a line through the picture plane providing innocence and thrill to everything that goes on. The two that we recognize are but a corner of what Valdemar would cram into his daily cartoon on a summer's day in the city.