Travelers to Esbjerg are welcomed from the sea side by Svend Wiig Hansen’s monumental sculpture The Man by the Sea, which was erected on the occasion of Esbjerg’s 100th anniversary in 1994 as an independent municipality.
The sculpture, made of white concrete, depicts the encounter of the pure and undefiled man with nature. The man as it was when it came out of mother’s life. Man before it rises and begins to act. It is only then, said Wiig Hansen, that things go wrong. Only then does man get “dirt” on his fingers. This meeting has Wiig Hansen portrayed by creating a universal sculpture with a temple atmosphere, an acropolis atmosphere – a sculpture with a sacred radiance. The sacred radiance is achieved by the rigid appearance of the human figures, which makes the viewer think of the Memnon pillars or Ramses II, which looks out over the Nile Valley at Abu Simbel. Nor can the Easter Island’s mysterious stone figures avoid falling into the viewer’s.
The legs stand like the pillars of a Greek temple. The lower legs are made long, precisely to achieve a pillar effect. The thighs are relatively short. The same heads, which with their unfathomable and unfathomable expressions stare out at Skallingen and the harbor entrance, not least cause a glimpse of the supernatural – a glimmer of the divine. The sculpture is not bound to a specific time. It is in its moody and emotional expression eternal.
That it was just 4 “people” who had to sit on the beach, has its reason in that Wiig Hansen found the number harmonious – more in accordance with the sculpture’s basic idea of the “pure” man – than e.g. the number 3 or 5. The sculpture has by virtue of its size (9 meters high) and radiance become a landmark for Esbjerg. In clear weather, the bodies that stand like tense sails can be seen at a distance of 10 km.
Esbjerg has been enriched with a monumental sculpture of international strength.
The sculpture stands approx. 4 km from Esbjerg city center.
The sculpture was unveiled on October 28, 1995.
Buses to Man by the sea
Bus line A from Banegården and Skolegade / Torvet. Bus lines 12 and 13 from Fanøfærgen via Banegården.
