Art: THE ROOM AT THE TOP

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IN assessing their land's varied artistic achievement, the critics and historians of Denmark rightly speak with pride, but wisely do not boast. "Ours is a little room," Art Historian Christian Elling once explained, "on the top floor of the big European museum." This week the U.S. public will be able to see just what the little room has produced. In Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, His Majesty King Frederik IX, accompanied by Queen Ingrid, will cut a golden ribbon to open the largest display of Danish art ever shown in the U.S.—a charming and sometimes dazzling harvest of 100 industrious centuries.

Were the world of art limited only to painting and sculpture, something would seem to be rotten in Denmark. The kingdom has had its share of fine artists, but few were giants, and not all were even Danish. The greatest sculptor of 15th century Denmark, Claus Berg, was a German; the chief art adviser to King Christian IV was Dutch. Of the five leading painters in 18th century Denmark, one was French and two were Swedish, and it took a Frenchman, Joseph Saly, to put Copenhagen's Royal Academy of Fine Arts on its feet. Even Denmark's most famous sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen, who died in 1844, spent most of his adult life in Rome and got most of his inspiration from the ancient Greeks.

Denmark's artistic genius has primarily been a household affair. Some 8,000 years before Christ, Danes were polishing and shaping bits of bone and amber into small beasts and birds to be used as both ornaments and currency. Six thousand years later, the farmers of Jutland and Zealand were fashioning bowls and beakers as sophisticated as any found anywhere in Europe. In time, bronze, silver and gold objects appeared: the viking bracelets and necklaces on display at the Met could have been the work of the finest goldsmiths of any age.

Beauty has poured out of both castle and cottage. The rich had their silver-laden chairs, nobility had its gold table service, and royalty had its jeweled Order of the Elephant. But there were ornate crowns for village brides, carved and painted cupboards for the peasant, delicate silverware for the merchant. All classes had their art, and art served all classes. By tradition, the nation's architects and sculptors have lavished as much talent on furniture, glassware, pottery, silverware, and even toys, as on stone or canvas.

Today's "Danish modern" is in a sense the climax of that tradition—a simple, sane and sanitary style suitable for all. The Met show has its full share of pleasing examples: the frugally lined furniture of Kaare Klint and Arne Jacobsen, the silver of Georg Jensen, bright-hued pottery by Axel Salto and Arnold Krog, and the toys of Kay Bojessen that combine beauty with humor. But despite the riches of the present, the fact remains that Denmark's most spectacular moments of majesty come from long ago.