"Man by the Sea" – Esbjerg by Silva Wischeropp

This long-exposure photograph was taken in the late evening of 27 August 2016 using a NIKON D90 (lens: SIGMA 18.0–50.0 mm f/2.8).

Visitors arriving in Esbjerg by sea are greeted by Svend Wiig Hansen’s monumental sculpture “Man by the Sea”.

The sculpture, made of white concrete, depicts the encounter between the pure, unspoilt human being and nature. The human being as he was when he was born of his mother. The human being before he rises and begins to act. Only then, said Wiig Hansen, do things go wrong. Only then does the human being “get his hands dirty”. Wiig Hansen depicts this encounter through a universal sculpture with a temple-like atmosphere, an Acropolis-like atmosphere – a sculpture with a sacred aura.
He achieves this sacred aura through the rigid appearance of the human figures, which remind the viewer of the Memnon statues or of Ramses II, who gazes out over the Nile Valley at Abu Simbel. The mysterious stone figures on Easter Island also spring involuntarily to mind.

The legs stand like columns in a Greek temple. The lower legs are elongated – precisely to achieve this column-like effect. The thighs, by contrast, are short. Not least their identical heads, which stare at Skallingen and the harbour entrance with an inscrutable, unfathomable expression, give one a sense of the supernatural – a glimpse of the divine.
The sculpture is not tied to a specific time.
In its atmosphere-laden and emotionally charged expression, it is eternally valid.
The reason there are precisely four ‘people’ sitting on the beach is that Wiig Hansen found this number harmonious – more in keeping with the basic idea of the ‘pure’ human being than, for example, 3 or 5.
Due to its size (9 m high) and its aura, the sculpture has become a landmark of Esbjerg.
Esbjerg has been enriched by a monumental sculpture of international stature.