Hans Christian Andersen: A poet with quill and scissors

Among the many silhouettes on show at the "Hans Christian Andersen: A Poet with Quill and Scissors" exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bremen is one depicting a bizarre male plant with a large head, surrounded by petals. Here, the Danish writer illustrated his idea about the spirit of nature, described by co-curator Detlef Stein as "a living flower that has feelings."

From childhood, Andersen was preoccupied with images of mills. In his day, they dominated Denmark's landscape. Here, he depicts two Ole Lukojes, mythic creatures who send children off to sleep (the equivalent of the German Sandman). Exhibition co-curator Anne Buschhoff described how Ole "comes in the evening and holds an umbrella painted with beautiful pictures above the heads of good children."

"Andersen's silhouettes are always connected to his life story," said co-curator Anne Buschhoff. He aspired to be an actor, dancer or singer, but those dreams didn't materialize. Many of the motifs in the exhibition, however, show ballerinas and theater stages. Here, Andersen locked his two dancers in a corked bottle.

This large-format silhouette shows Anderson's entire repertoire of motifs. It was one of his final and most elaborate works, which he created for Dorothea Melchior, a friendly merchant's wife. In addition to millmen, harlequins and ballerinas, two skulls can also be seen. The work was created just a year before he died of cancer at the age of 70.

Andersen's travels took him all over Europe. In the capital of the then-Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (now Istanbul), he was particularly inspired. As a child he also read the fairy tales of 1001 Nights. "You can imagine the most magnificent magic palaces," he recalled in 1841 on his journey to the near East. His artwork contains various oriental fantasy castles.

In addition to his silhouettes, the Bremen exhibition is showing several of Anderson's collages. For many of them, he made use of illustrated magazines, which were hugely popular in his day. In his collages, Andersen was interested in how his work appealed both visually and by touch. He deliberately mixed paper with different surfaces and consistencies.

During a trip to Italy, Andersen witnessed a volcanic eruption. He saw a broad stream of lava flowing down Vesuvius, which left a lasting impression. In this drawing, he dispensed entirely with internal structures. What appears quite modern today baffled his contemporaries. "He couldn't do justice to the standard of academic drawing," said co-curator Detlef Stein.

In the last years of his life, Andersen enjoyed so-called blotchography, an experimental technique based on ink blotches that, mostly by chance, drip onto paper. Inspired by this coincidental form, tiny pictures like this one emerged, in which Andersen, again, recalled memories from his travels.