Plaster, 1892. Size 193 x 67,5 x 59,5 cm. Inv. no. 133. Donated to the museum by Niels Hansen Jacobsen.

Exhibitions

Charlottenborg, 1893.
One-man show at the Free Exhibition Building, 1901.

The motif

"The Vine" depicts a young woman stretching up beside a tree trunk. She is a personification of the vine. Like the plant, she stretches up towards the light, and her ecstatic face brings to mind the intoxicating power of wine. Female sensuality and various associations with the vine merge in this three-dimensional symbol.

A symbolist work

"The Vine" is a symbolist work. Symbolism was a reaction against Naturalism - a desire to depict more than external reality. The symbolists tried to express what lay in man's mind, namely his inner emotions and ideas. They endeavoured to give ideas a visible and material form. A naturalist would have shown the plant the way it really looks. Niels Hansen Jacobsen did not just want to show us a vine; by creating a symbolist work, he endeavored to penetrate the surface and describe things such as the plant's beauty and the sensuality linked with the cultivation of grapes for wine - a sensuality that he also associated with women.

Symbolism

Symbolism had no specific common style. Some symbolist artists used common symbolic figures and narratives as motifs for their work, while others sought to convey their subjective feelings or ideas purely with the aid of form and color harmonies. If we can speak of a movement, it is because the symbolists were preoccupied with depicting ideas and emotions, things that normally cannot be given visible form. Niels Hansen Jacobsen is generally called a symbolist, even though his work embraced much more with regard to both form and content.