Location | Copenhagen, Denmark |
---|---|
Designer | Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen |
Type | Equestrian statue |
Material | Bronze and granite |
Opening date | 17 December 1939 |
Dedicated to | Carl Nielsen |
The Carl Nielsen Monument, located at the corner of Grønningen and Store Kongensgade in central Copenhagen, Denmark, is a monument to Danish composer Carl Nielsen created by his wife Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen. It depicts a young man playing pan-pipes on a wingless Pegasus and is also known as The Genius of Music (Danish: Musikkens Genius). The original plaster model is owned by the Carl Nielsen Museum in Odense.
The monument is an allegorical equestrian statue. Horse and man are depicted in a dynamic pose. The naked young man with pan-pipes represents Pan, god of music in Greek mythology. His face strongly resembles that of a young Carl Nielsen.[1] The Pegasus figure had wings in Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen's earlier models but the wings were left out in the final design.
Carl-Nielsen has commented on the design that "What I wanted to show in my figure is the forward movement, the sense of life, the fact that nothing stands still."[2]
Carl Nielsen died on 3 October 1931. The monument was a donation from the Committee for the Creation of a Monument to the Composer Carl Nielsen and the Foundation for the Advancement of Artistic Purposes (Fonden til kunstneriske Formaals Fremme).[3]
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen was commissioned to design the monument. She worked on it in her studio in Civiletatens Materialgård at Frederiksholms Kanal 26. She wrote: "I wanted to take the winged horse, eternal symbol of poetry, and place a musician on its back. He was to sit there between the rushing wings blowing a reed pipe out over Copenhagen". Dispute about her design and a shortfall in funding meant that the monument was delayed and that Anne Marie herself ended up subsidising it. It was finally unveiled on 17 December 1939.[4]
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