The Daily Valdemar No. 54: May 6
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| Valdemar Andersen, vignette for the daily Politiken, ca. 1908. |
What used to be a simple act of sitting down in public is now an immoral sight tinged with a heavy heart of what may be lost for a long time yet. To help that feeling Valdemar Andersen is here to show us that there is nothing casual or relaxed about the situation. They have each entered the scene with the purpose to be seen and admired. The bench as a whole is highly choreographed by the four of them. The newest cut and the newest much plumed hat. They are hardly interacting with one another. They are there to be looked at, while pretending that they are not.
Their choreography is of course signed off by their cartoonist in what is at first sight busy masses of draped fabric and ditto legs, but is in fact a rhythm of the half circles of the parasols each mirrored in a coattail. So while they are pretending that this is their usual self, it is the coattails seen from underneath the bench, which anchor the scene.
