From September 3 to 26, Copenhagen celebrates the Golden Age of Danish art and culture in the 1890s at the Golden Days Festival. The focus is on decorative art, literature and city life – including architecture. Look for more than 200 exhibitions and events including a performance of Carl Nielsen’s 1897 symphony Hymnis Amoris and art from the 1891 Free Exhibition for Artists – Denmark’s version of the history-making French Impressionists.

Golden Days Festival

Golden Days in Copenhagen is a major cultural heritage festival set to take place in 2004 for the sixth time. The festival will take place 3 - 26 September 2004 under the title "The Age of Dreams - Copenhagen of the 1890s".

In the 1890s, Copenhagen had become a modern city with boulevards, electricity and telephones. The city was on par with Paris within the emerging arts movements, such as Impressionism and Symbolism.

The festival will feature three themes central to the cultural life of the 1890s: Decorative art, literature and city life. The emerging arts and crafts movement criticised modern mass production and advocated a return to individually crafted decorative art, which renders each item unique. The contemporary movement within literature was Symbolism, which emphasised the spiritual values, emotions and aspirations of man.

The city itself had changed, and for city dwellers this meant a new stressful age, which nonetheless offered far more variety and experience. Modern city life generated new ways of living. There was a café society, and the entertainment industry flourished. Artists drew inspiration from abroad - painters journeyed to Paris and came home with new ideas. The young artists established "Den Frie Udstilling" (The Free Exhibition) in 1891, which allowed them to exhibit their works uncensored.

In the 1890s, artists rebelled against the realism and naturalism of previous generations.The Symbolists were preoccupied with spirituality, emotions and dreams, symbolised by myth. Some prominent artists of the period were the composer Carl Nielsen, the painters J.F. Willumsen and Vilhelm Hammershøi, authors Herman Bang, J.P. Jacobsen and Sophus Claussen and woman's rights advocate and authoress Emma Gad.