Producing history, (re)branding the nation: the case of an exhibition on the Danish Golden Age

ABSTRACT

This article examines how national museums, which are key actors in nation-building and nation-branding, participate in the production and circulation of national myths for present contexts. Through a case study of a travelling exhibition on the Danish Golden Age, we analyse how the exhibition and myth of the Danish Golden Age change and transform as they are circulated in the national contexts of Denmark and Sweden, and how the changes are linked to variations and differences in nation-building and nation-branding in the two national contexts. Our theoretical framework combines nationalism studies with the concept of nation-branding, and uses an institutional perspective to explore how rule-like myths about a golden age are transformed in the face of differing national-identity and nation-branding needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Myths
• museums
• national identity
• nation-branding
• Denmark
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Peter Nørgaard Larsen at The National Gallery of Denmark and Magnus Olausson at Nationalmuseum for their generous input. We also gratefully acknowledge the feedback of the special issue editors Eirinn Larsen, University of Oslo, and Svein Ivar Angell, University of Bergen, as well as two anonymous reviewers, and colleagues at the Centre for Business History at Copenhagen Business School and the Institute of Contemporary History, Södertörn University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Grand, “Defining the Golden Age,” 27.

2. Kaplan, Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’. In this article, we focus on the national galleries – the National Gallery in Denmark and Nationalmuseum in Sweden – and not the national history museums.

3. Glover, “Imaging Community.”

4. Vergo, The New Museology.

5. Nationalmuseum, “Dansk guldålder”; and Statens Museum for Kunst, “Dansk guldalder.”

6. Nora, Rethinking France. Vol. 1. Nora, Rethinking France. Vol. 2.

7. Wadhwani et al., “History as Organizing.”

8. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations.”

9. Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology.

10. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organisations.”

11. Lawrence and Suddaby, “Institutions and Institutional Work.”

12. Aronczyk, “The Transnational Promotional Class.”

13. Østergaard, Danish Golden Age.

14. Anholt, Competitive Identity.

15. Mordhorst, “Public Diplomacy vs Nation Branding.”

16. Eng and Lindaräng, “Negotiating Local, National and Nordic Identities.”

17. Mordhorst and Østergård, “Nation-Branding.”

18. Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden, Images of Sweden Abroad.

19. Glover, “Imaging Community.”

20. Mordhorst, “Nation Branding and Nationalism.”

21. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations.”

22. Lawrence and Suddaby, “Institutions and Institutional Work.”

23. Kaplan, Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’.

24. Smith, The Nation Made Real.

25. Smith, National Identity, viii.

26. As political theorists and nation-branding scholars remind us, a positive perception of the nation can be converted into political power, renown and investment; see Nye, Soft Power.

27. Mordhorst and Schwarzkopf, “Theorising Narrative in Business History”; Suddaby et al., “Rhetorical History as a Source of Competitive Advantage”; Foster et al., “History as Social Memory Assets”; Brunninge, “Using History in Organizations”; Mordhorst, “Arla and Danish National Identity”; and Zundel et al., “Using History in the Creation of Organizational Identity.”

28. Nora, Rethinking France. Vols 1 & 2.

29. Statens Museum for Kunst, “Om SMK.”

30. Østergård, “Denmark: A Big Small State.”

31. Hansen, Illustreret dansk litteraturhistorie, 255–90.

32. Vedel, Studier over guldalderen i dansk digtning.

33. Grand et al., “Introduktion/Introduction.”

34. Henriksen, Ideologihistorie 1.

35. Jensen, “Efter guldalderkonstruktionens sammenbrud.”

36. Engberg, Dansk guldalder.

37. Ibid.

38. Grand, “Defining the Golden Age”; and Bramsen, Dansk kunst fra rokoko til vore dage.

39. Larsen and Olausson, “The Golden Age of Danish Art,” 17.

40. Grand et al., “Introduktion/Introduction.”

41. Rubow et al., Dansk guldålder, 12.

42. Stæhr, “Guldalder Nivaagaard.”

43. Monrad, Dansk guldalder.

44. Jørgensen, “Creating Cultural Heritage.”

45. Simons and Manoilo, “Sweden’s Self-Perceived Global Role”; Trägårdh and Berggren, Är svensken människa? A similar sentiment can be found in the slogan of the Danish brewery Carlsberg: ‘probably the best beer in the world’.

46. Mårdh, “A Century of Swedish Gustavian Style.”

47. For example, the ‘Golden Days’ festival is a hugely successful cultural fair. And when the Danish oil company DONG Energy rebranded itself in 2017, it took the name Ørsted, after the Golden Age physicist H. C. Ørsted.

48. Uno, “Christiansborg-kontor med hjemlig hygge.”

49. Emilsson, “Recasting Swedish Historical Identity,” 192.

50. Mordhorst, “Arla and Danish National Identity.”

51. Berg, “Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1814.”

52. Oxfeldt, Nordic Orientalism.

53. Østergård, “Fortidens nutid.”

54. Høiris et al., Mythologies.

55. Grand et al., GULD/GOLD; Vejlby, Den anden guldlalder; and Christensen, Guldalderens billedverden.

56. Vejlby, Den anden guldalder.

57. Fossat et al., “Historier Om Danmark”; and Grand and Oelsner, “Visuelle konfliktzoner og kulturkampe.”

58. Schmidt, “Politik og pensler.”

59. Larsen, “Fear of Loss.”

60. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the exhibition at the Petit Palais was postponed several times and was affected by travel restrictions.

61. Kåberg and Olausson, “Introduction”; and Olausson, “New Works and New Contexts.”

62. Larsen, “Fear of Loss.”

63. Østergård, “Denmark: A Big Small State.”

64. Kaspersen, Denmark in the World.

65. Larsen and Olausson, “The Golden Age of Danish Art,” 17.

66. Ibid.

67. Kunstakademiet, “Undervisning for kvinder.”

68. Krogh and Fink, Breve fra London.

69. Krogh and Fink, Breve fra London; Miskowiak, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann; Bendixen, Verdensdamen Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann.

70. Pouplier, Lisinka.

71. Zorgati, “The Painter and the Princess”; and Oxfeldt, Nordic Orientalism; Nørregård-Nielsen, Dansk Kunst, 317.

72. Nørregård-Nielsen, 317.

73. Ibid.

74. Kryger, “Opfordring til SMK”; and DR2, ”Debatten.”

75. DR2, “Debatten.”

76. Ibid.

77. The study showed that ‘just 11% of all acquisitions and 14% of exhibitions at 26 prominent American museums over the past decade were of work by female artists’; see Burns et al., “Museum Aquisitions of Work by Women.”

78. Kåberg and Olausson, “Introduction.”

79. DR2, “Debatten.”

80. Poellinger, ““Dansk guldålder” generös tidsresa.”

81. Kåberg and Olausson, “Introduction,” 10.

82. Ibid.

83. Olausson, “Up Close,” 189. These included several portrait drawings by Christen Købke, one of the most highly regarded Golden Age painters, such as Portrait of the Artist Constantin Hansen (1839), The Sculptor Bengt Erland Fogelberg (1839) and Portrait of the Grocer Peter Petersen (c. 1845).

84. E.g. A Young Man with a Staring Gaze by Johan Thomas Lundbye (1841) and Portrait of Grundtvig’s Daughter Mrs Meta Boisen by Peter Christian Skovgaard (1846).

85. Bergwik et al., Svensk snillrikhet?

86. Hedin, “Observing Nature,” 180.

87. Sedig, Swedish Innovations.

88. Swedish Institute, “Gender Equality in Sweden.”

89. Mordhorst and Jensen, “Cooperatives”; and Mordhorst, “The Creation of a Regional Brand.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NordForsk [86036].

Notes on contributors

Ida Lunde Jørgensen

Ida Lunde Jørgensen is a ReNEW Postdoctoral Fellow and a cultural and organizational scholar at the Centre for Business History at Copenhagen Business School. Her current interests are in institutions, organizations, uses of the past, national museums, brands, symbols and national identity. In 2022, she joins the SCANCOR-Weatherhead Partnership at Harvard University as a visiting scholar and was recently a visiting researcher the Institute for Contemporary History at Södertörn University. Jørgensen is on the editorial board of Kulturstudier, a Danish journal of ethnography and history. Her research is funded by ReNEW (Reimagining Norden in an Evolving World), NordForsk.

Mads Mordhorst

Mads Mordhorst is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Business History at Copenhagen Business School and guest professor at Oslo University with a focus on the Nordics and civil society. His publication list includes more than 40 academic pieces, many with a Nordic perspective, and he is co-editor of the book The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images (Routledge, 2021). His research interests include branding, nation-branding, the food industry and cooperatives. He is primarily interested in how companies use history and memory in the creation of power, strategy, legitimacy and identity.