7. Offensive temerity

As a result of his stay in Paris Giersing had acquired a considerable artistic debt. He now had as quickly as possible to demonstrate his artistic worth to the world around him and to his father, for whom it meant the ability to earn your own living.

In 1907 Copenhagen did not offer young artists of a radical bent many facilities for exhibiting, but Giersing succeeded in obtaining space in the art dealer Valdemar Kleis' so-called "Autumn Exhibition" that year. Of the 26 pictures he exhibited, none was from before 1905.

A large proportion of the pictures from 1906 and 1907 have been relatively badly preserved; among other things, the greyish shade of the thick grounding, which subdues the colour, must be suspected of not being the original. Nevertheless, it is possible to observe how from picture to picture Giersing has experimented with colour and lines. From quickly executed watercolour-like pictures done with broad strokes of mixed and pure colours to more unambiguously fauvist efforts, more closely constructed with stronger colours and more powerful contrasts.

There is a characteristic, light, gentle overall effect to some of the pictures of women, but there is nevertheless a painterly roughness about them that is all the more striking against the background of the reliable motifs.

The reviewers were not totally unresponsive, although most of them kept at a safe distance. In no way was the exhibition a commercial breakthrough, but it did not go unnoticed. As a demonstration to the public at large and to himself of who he now was, it was thus a success. To Giersing's father this demonstration was of no significance, as nothing had been sold, and in the winter of 1907-08 Giersing started working in the evenings and nights as a proof-reader on the newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

During the following two years Giersing only managed to exhibit two pictures at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (The Artists' Autumn Exhibition), where pictures were subjected to a jury beforehand. These were, in 1908, Woman in White Dress and Yellow Hat and, in 1909, Woman in Red Shawl, both of which met with severe criticism in the press. One reviewer in 1908 expressed the opinion that Giersing was a natural source of scandal, while an-other in 1909 had "to turn away with the most profound sense of disgust" from his one picture. He could see nothing in it except "offensive temerity".

Giersing saw the negative criticism in 1909 as a sign of his own ability and pasted the cantankerous words as a kind of motto on the inside of the cover of his diary. He needed the scandalised public, as it needed him in order to place the scandalous nature of the world in a single picture by a young artist.

To be continued...
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