Closer

We all know the sense of intimacy – of being closely attuned to people, spaces and objects. But the concept of intimacy is not a fixed, given thing; it has its own cultural history that art has helped shape and change.   

In a process that began in the early eighteenth century and lasted two hundred years, artists increasingly pulled quite uneventful lives into the foreground of their art. Grand and spectacular events gave way to images of ordinary people in familiar settings. And the artists increasingly spoke directly to sensitive observers, using light, spaces and textures that invite intimate observation.   

With Closer – Intimacies in Art 1730-1930 the director of the SMK, Mikkel Bogh, relates the story of how art became modern, homing in on the private, personal body and the objects of everyday life.