Although he did master all the different genres in literature - poetry, prose and drama - the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen is most known as a fairy tale author throughout the world. It is less known that the author's artistic field was not limited to the written word. Hans Christian Andersen also used paper for drawings and paper cuttings.


The majorty of Hans Christian Andersen's drawings were made during his journeys in Europe and Asia Minor - especially the journey to Italy 1833-34 and the journey to Asia Minor in 1840-41. After this period it seems that the author lost interest in drawings. In his diaries, in which Hans Christian Andersen often mentions scenarios worth drawing, one can - to a certain extend - follow the decline of the activity of this kind of artistic enterprise. The last drawings tends to be stenographic signs of objects used where words seems to be insufficient. Or they could be symmetrical patterns made of ink nowadays known by the Rorschach-tests or other non-figural amusements of ink on paper like the example on this page: letters and words simply as form similar to the manners of Kandinskij.

The typical drawings by Hans Christians Andersen were made on small scraps of paper easy to carry around in the pocket. Normally he made his first sketch with a pencil and later braced up the impression with ink. One could assume that the purpose of the drawings was to keep scenarios as souvenirs, but in fact Hans Christian Andersen used his drawings as detailed notes for his writings. Thus there is a connection between the drawings and Hans Christians Andersen's way of writing, and the stylistic development in the drawings can be seen as equivalent to the authorship.

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