The Daily Valdemar No. 39: April 20

Valdemar Andersen, sketch ca. 1907. Private collection.

Today's moment of calm is the impossibility of the authentic.

Anna Pavlova was likened to a flamingo when she first performed in Copenhagen. The long necks twisting to and fro were one of the objects of observation to get it right, when Valdemar Andersen was preparing for the suite of poems on The Zoo in Copenhagen by Kai Holberg. Guests and animals alike are dreaming of the great unknown, yet the reality of the animals is at best a life of boredom. 

A number of large birds are trotting about on Valdemar's sketch, some of which seem to acknowledge that they are being observed. The Zoo was next to his home and one of his main sources of visual inspiration. He would draw each animal from many angles to catch its distinct way of walking, standing, basking and holding its head, and to the paper is added the testing of the pen while preparing the finished drawing. 

One of the striking features of the flamingo is its color, which was not an option in this instance. Nor did Valdemar make use of the idea of the twisting necks apart from one making two sharp corners of it. Instead he emphasized the majesty of the birds forming a row of vertical lines from top to bottom of the picture plane. The one neck is directly continued by another and the pond mirrors their legs; the lines of which are completed by a slight swirl.

Their lines are made all the more majestic by the flatness of the fence - a direct inspiration from Simplicissimus - and the busy foliage above. Nothing before us is real, which is their reality. 

Valdemar Andersen, "The Flamingo" for Kai Holberg, Zoologisk Have; Digte
(The Zoological Garden; Poems), Gyldendal 1907.