Norwegian painters – my daily art display

Nikolai Johannes Astrup. Part 2.

Portrait of Nikolai by Bernhard Folkestad (1910)

Now back home in Jølster Nikolai wanted to put into practice all that he had learnt in France and Germany. He decided not to go back to the city of Kristiania but instead return to what he termed his “homeland” the village of Jølster and the large nearby lake the Jølstervatnet. His idea was to find a way to depict pictorially this area, the area he referred to as his “kingdom of childhood”

Maps showing the Kleivafjellet mountain and the village of Sunde where Engel’s father’s farm was located. Jolster was were Nikolai was living at the time.

For the first few years Nikolai lived at the vicarage and produced many paintings. On December 23^rd 1907, he married Engel Marie Sunde. At the time of the wedding, she was still a month away from her sixteenth birthday, while Nikolai was twenty-seven. Her young age caused controversy in the village. There is an unusual story about how Nikolai and Engel met and became friends. Nikolai wanted to paint a landscape picture featuring the Kleivafjellet, a mountain on the north side of the Kjøsnesfjord but the best view of the mountain was found on the Sunde farm, on the opposite side of the Kjøsnesfjord lake.

Kollen by Nikolai Astrup (1906) Sunde farm in the foreground.

The Sunde Farm was owned by Anders Jensen Sunde who had a daughter Engel Marie. Nikolai asked for permission to stand in a room on the Sunde farm on the opposite side of the lake, where there was a great view of the mountain and paint the mountain using the farmhouse as his base. Nikolai was allowed to position himself and his easel in a room in one of the farm buildings. He completed the work in late 1906 and it was entitled Raw November Morning at Sunde in Jølster but later known as Kollen (The Fell). Nikolai and Engel’s friendship grew into love and eventually marriage on December 23rd 1907. Nikolai was twenty-seven and his bride had yet to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. For a time Nikolai believed that due to the age of his very young wife he was at risk of losing an art grant due to the controversy. In a letter to his friend Henrik Lund, Astrup wrote:

“…It is true that I married a rather young girl but I do not think that it is immoral to a degree that I should be deprived of my stipend for that reason…”

Vårlandskap (Spring landscape) by Nikolai Astrup (1908)

Nikolai and Engel Astrup went on to have eight children. Their first child, a daughter, Kari, was born in 1911 followed by their eldest son who was named Arnold Böcklin Astrup. Engel was a significant inspiration to her husband and was a source of positive sentiments for him. Unfortunately Nikolai despite his health problems, wrote in 1909 about how much his wife had enhanced his life in a letter in 1909:

“…I cannot afford to lose her, I had almost given up hope in life when I met her, and thanks to her my life-force re-ignited…”

June Night and Old West Country Farmyard by Nikolai Astrup (1907)

A recurring motif in Astrup’s landscape paintings were views local to where he lived in the municipality of Jølster. In his painting, June Night and Old West Country Farmyard, a twilight depiction of Ålhustunet in Jølster that seems to have a special meaning for Nikolai Astrup and it was one which he painted several versions of. In the middle ground of the picture we see a cluster of buildings (klyngetunet), one that was situated above Astrup’s childhood home, the vicarage at Ålhus. This cluster of log buildings indicated the presence of human life within this idyllic setting. In the background we see an imposing mountain looming behind the farm, and the rushing waterfall, the Kleberfossen, can be seen cascading down its side. For Astrup, the main aspect which seems to have captured his interest is the lush meadow full of bright yellow buttercups that we see in the picture’s foreground, translucent and shimmering in the clear summer night. The buttercups in this twilight scene are important as they do not close at sunset. Their role are to be points of light in the shadowy landscape. It is believed that Nikolai had to travel elsewhere to study buttercups as the marsh at Ålhustunet had been drained some years prior and thus the marsh-loving flowers had long since died out.

St. Hansbål ved Jølstravatnet (Midsummer Eve Bonfire) by Nikolai Astrup (1909)

Nikolai’s father, the clergyman, was a devout religious believer who condemned the pagan celebration of Midsummer Eve and would not allow his son to attend these festivals when he was young. However his son would often sneak out of the house and attend the festivities. In a letter to Mayor Aslaksen of Arendal, Nikolai recalled his time as a teenager during the Midsummer Eve celebrations:

”…it was sinful for Christians to join the [pagan] celebration. Then […] I had to stand back behind the fence and look and listen while the others danced around the bonfire and whooped for joy […] It struck me that the bonfire was something sinful, something bad being practiced in the green dusk – it was pagan. This idea was reinforced by the jealousy festering inside me when the other children could attend, but I had to stand behind the fence…”

In 1909 Nikolai Astrup completed a painting entitled St. Hansbål ved Jølstravatnet (Midsummer Eve Bonfire). It is a vibrantly coloured painting, in which we see a group of people sitting in the grass at the edge of a large lake, the Brenden. There is a large yellow-orange bonfire from which we witness orange sparks and black smoke billowing upward. On the far side of the lake there are tall, dark mountains appearing in the background. We can see another bonfire with its grey smoke rising into the sky on that mountainside in or around the village of Ålhus.

Midsummer Eve Bonfire by Nikolai Astrup

The Midsummer Eve bonfires depicted in this painting were part of pagan fertility celebrations and rituals dating back to ancient times. In this version, the spectators sit and watch quietly, in other versions they participate in lively dancing and music-making, such as fiddle-playing, as music and folk dancing were also important aspects of the Midsummer Eve celebrations.

Of Nikolai Astrup’s many Midsummer Eve paintings, the art critic Claudia Massie, noted:

“…as a Christian child, Astrup was forbidden to participate in these rituals. Instead, he had to watch, simultaneously seduced and scared by what he saw […] This conflict is evident in the work. Astrup is an observer, not a participant, and what might in another artist’s hands be a glib, gleeful scene becomes something profound and unnerving; the prelapsarian seen through the pastor…”

Nikolai and Engel Astrup

Nikolai and Engel Astrup bought a dilapidated smallholding on a steep hill at Sandalstrand (now called Astruptunet) in 1912 and he, his wife and young daughter moved there in 1913. Astrup was interested in old building traditions and built up the farm on his own.The property was on thirty acres of land and lay three kilometres from the town of Myklebust where he had his studio. Eventually after two years of hard work he renovated the house and created a studio within it. Today it is part of Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum.

Astruptunet on the south side of Jølstravatnet, Nikolai and Engel Astrup’s home 1914–1928, is today part of Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum Photo: Panorama with distorted perspective, spring 2015.

Engel Astrup left her distinctive mark on the artist’s home. She collected antiques and textiles and had a large collection of historical Jølster yoke clothes in various patterns. Gradually, Engel Astrup also developed as a textile artist and became particularly known for her fabric prints, and especially for national costume aprons in up to three-coloured patterns. In 1939 she exhibited hand-printed tablecloths at Bergens Kunstforening, and was also elected vice-chairman of Jølster Husflidslag.

Vårnatt og seljekall (Spring Night and the Call of the Goat Willow) Hand coloured woodcut by Nikolai Astrup (1917)

During his studies in Paris in 1901, Nikolai Astrup became fascinated with Japanese woodcuttings and the world of Japonisme, a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858.

Martzmorgen by Nikolai Astrup (1917). Oil on canvas.

It was not until 1914 when he was back in Norway that Nikolai began to produce his own woodcuts. One of his best-known woodcuts is entitled (Spring night and the call of the willow) which he completed in 1917. The title of the work refers to the whispering sound made by the wind as it blows past the Selje tree (willow tree). In the centre of his depiction, inside the tree, Nikolai has depicted the tree and its branches in such a way that we can see a round head-like shape with protrusions that look like ears, and on either side of this, arm-like branches each with five “fingers” reaching upward. The tree itself is silhouetted against a natural background with a lake and mountains beyond which he has rendered with light pastel colours.

Engel Astrup in the Garden by Nikolai Astrup

In addition to farming and maintaining his growing family, (his eighth child was born in 1924), Nikolai continued with his artistic work, but his finances were very tight, and he struggled with poor health. Nikolai’s farm, being situated on a steep terrain, was so steep that he had to build terraces to make room for fields and meadows. One of the crops he grew was many types of rhubarb, which he would often depict in several of his paintings featuring his and Engel’s garden.

Vårkveld ved Jølstervannet (Spring evening by Jølstervannet) by Nikolai Astrup (1900)

Astrup was plagued by asthma from childhood. The frequent seizures often forced him to go outside at night to catch his breath and his illness is frequently mentioned in his letters. It is thought that the medication he used at times probably caused problems with his sight. For someone suffering from this ailment, where he lived affected his health as the climate in Jølster and the waterlogged soil at Ålhus probably had exacerbated his illness. In 1906 he was severely affected by tuberculosis, and he medicated himself with adrenaline in injection form. In a letter from 1909, he writes that he had been declared free of infection.

Ålhus church, where Nikolai’s father was a priest, with Sandalstrand on the opposite side of Jølstravatnet. Astrup was buried at Ålhus church at the family gravesite.

In early January 1928 he travelled in an open car to Førde, caught a cold and died of pneumonia on January 21^st 1928, aged 47. He was buried at Ålhus church and the funeral was paid for by the Jølster municipality. Engel was left alone, a widow with eight children under the age of 17. She died Dec 29th 1966 at age 74 in Jølster, Sogn og Fjordane.

Information for this blog came from various Wikipedia websites as well as websites alluded to in Nikolai Astrup. Part 1.

Nikolai Johannes Astrup. Part 1.

When you think about Norwegian artists and famous Norwegian paintings, I think you will immediately think of Edvard Munch and his well-known painting entitled Scream. However, there were many great Norwegian artists and some of them have featured in my blogs such as the Romantic artist Thomas Fearnley, Peder Balke, Eilert Adelsteen Normann and Harriet Backer to mention just a few. Today I am looking at the life and works of another great Norwegian artist, Nikolai Johannes Astrup.

Nikolai Johannes Astrup (c.1910)

Nikolai was born on August 30^th, 1880, in the village of Kalvag Bremanger, a municipality on the coast in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway but spent his early years in the nearby village of Ålhus. He was the eldest of fourteen children. His father, Christian Astrup, who came from a family of civil servants, became a parish priest at the Lutheran Ålhus Church in Jølster; his mother, Petra Konstanse Lodtz, was the daughter of Peder Mørch Lodtz, a glove manufacturer from Bergen. When Nikolai was three years old, the family moved to the municipality of Jølster following his father receiving the priesthood at the local church. The vicarage was both a residence and an ordinary working farm and Nikolai learned practical farm work as a boy. The vicarage was relatively poor and the farmhouse was partly rotten and run down.

Nikolai had a troubled childhood often rebelling against his father’s strict Christian morals. He also suffered from ill health and had to endure a life of isolation but gained pleasure from his love of drawing.

Nikolai’s father, Christian (1900)

His schooling started at home before, as a teenager, he went to live with his grandmother in Trondheim where from 1895 to 1897 he attended the cathedral school. However, due to his continuous bouts of illness (asthma) and his general dislike of school, his school achievements were limited to the one subject, natural sciences.

Nikolai’s mother, Petra (c.1900)

It was expected that as the eldest son he would become a priest like his father or maybe a magistrate. This was a custom in the Astrup family and so his father allowed Nikolai to move to the cathedral school, which would then lead him to become a priest but unknown to his mother and father Nikolai had discounted that idea from an earlier age.

Nikolai Astrup painted by his friend Henrik Lund in 1900

Instead Nikolai had decided that he would become an artist. The year he attended the Cathedral School it was noted that due to ill health Nikolai missed a lot of the school year and his grades were the worst in the class, and among the worst that year. Astrup biographer Øystein Loge suggests that some of his abences were due to him missing classes to visit Trondhjems Kunstforening (TKF) which is described as:

“… a meeting place in Trondheim where art enthusiasts of all ages, professional artists and amateurs have a common arena to experience and create visual art, as well as share their art experiences…”

It was here that he could see the works of the great Norwegian artists. Prior to moving to Trondheim, he had little contact with the paintings of well-known artists but once living in the city he was able to visit museums and take in the works of famous painters. The inevitable clash with his parents came after he completed his schooling but refused to join the priesthood saying his future lay in the world of art. Living back with his family the war of words lasted for a couple of years during which time he was tasked with the tutorship of his young siblings. He also designed wall hangings to be woven by his mother.

Kjerringa med Lykta (Old Woman with a Lantern) by Nikolai Astrup (1895-99) One of his early paintings, Kjerringa med Lykta (Old Woman with a Lantern) was one of three Astrup created as a teenager who had little money and could not afford to buy canvases and instead used fabric from old trousers.

The painting depicts an elderly woman, dressed in black, hunched over, carrying a lantern which glows in the darkness. She is seen walking between two dark brown log cabins. It is a winter scene during heavy snowfall and we can feel the cold as we see long icicles hanging from the roof of the cabin on the right. The passage between the two cabins is filled with snow, and still more heavy snow falls on the cabins and on the woman. In his notebook Nikolai described the scene:

“…Early winter morning (fantasy) Snowdrifts. Grey on grey, white and blue, light grey sky with dark grey flakes. The only element not fitting into this grey scheme is a lantern carried by a dark grey figure. The pinkish light cast against the snow fuses with the lantern’s form. A vague suggestion of daylight [is] the only [thing] showing itself over the rounded snow shapes on a rooftop […] The grey probably contains some colors, but these are so subtle, they are not noticed, and nowhere is one stronger than another, to the extent that it sticks out!…”

“May Moon” (woodcut with hand-colouring. An example of Nikolai Astrup repeating several times a motif (Kollen) he painted for the first time as a child.

Finally, in 1899, aged 19, Nikolai was allowed to leave home and go to Kristiania (Oslo since 1924) where he spent just two weeks attending evening classes in printmaking at the Royal School of Drawing (Kongelige tegneskole), before he enrolled at Harriet Backer’s private painting school. Here he studied life drawing, worked in oil, and produced his first etchings. It was also here that he started to develop what was to become his Neo-Romantic style. Nikolai did not receive any financial support from his family and struggled to survive and pay the course fees and yet his achievements at the drawing school were exceptional and Backer was suitably impressed with his progress and later described him as one of her most promising students:

“…I allowed him to work in the direction he wanted, as I understood he was the true genius of the school…”

He remained at the painting school until the autumn of 1901 when the Norwegian painter Kitty Kielland, a colleague of Harriet Backer, recommended Nikolai for the Olaf Schou’s travel scholarship which allowed him to travel through Germany to Paris, where he enrolled to study at the Académie Colarossi under the Norwegian painter Christian Krohg. Although attending the academy for just one year he made an impression on his tutor. Krohg commented:

“…When I speak of Mr. Nicolai Astrup as an artist, it cannot be the way an older artist speaks of a young artist as a ‘beginner’. Mr. Astrup is in no way a beginner even though he has been painting for a very short time. His unique talent has brought him past the first phase of development, a period where most people stay for at least ten years…”

Kvennagongsvatten by Nikolai Astrup (1916)

In Paris Nikolai took the opportunity to visit art museums and one of the artists who impressed him was the Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts artist Utagawa Hiroshige and he believed that his style could work when depicting the austere yet vivid landscape of his Norwegian homeland. Now based in Paris he was able to journey to other European countries. He became a lover of works by the French primitive painter, Henri Rousseau and the Swiss Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin. Of the latter he is recorded as saying:

“…It seems to me at the moment that there is no artist I understand as well as him, but maybe [he] is also easy for everyone to understand […] what is most exciting about his pictures is their unexpectedness, a moment that sends a shiver down one’s spine, and yet one can enjoy the sight of them for a long time afterward…”

So enamoured by the Swiss painter, he named his first son who was born in 1914, Arnold Böklin Astrup !

From the Seine by Nikolai Astrup (1901)

Very few of Astrup’s Paris paintings, exist with the exception of his 1901 charcoal and watercolor on paperwork work entitled From the Seine. Whilst staying in Paris, Astrup took the opportunity to make short trips to Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg with the aim of visiting museums and studying their treasures.

Fjøsfrieri, (Courting in the Barn) by Nikolai Astrup (1904)

One of his paintings, Fjøsfrieri Courting in the Cowshed, was completed a couple of years after he returned home from Paris. It depicts a view along the corridor of a wooden barn which is home to a herd of cows. In the left foreground we see a young couple in a romantic embrace. The young man is dressed in all black and we see a bottle of liquor poking out his jacket pocket. Both his arms are wrapped possessively around the young girl who we see standing barefoot and wearing a green shirt, red dress, and a headscarf. She is blushing and has one arm draped around the shoulder of the young man which adds to the amorous scene. In the upper centre of the painting, we notice a man laying in the hayloft spying on the young couple. A look through a window at the back of the barn, we see a hill and, beyond that, a glimpse of vibrant green foliage of a Spring landscape along with clear blue skies. The theme of love between two young people from a farming community was a foreshadow of Nikolai’s own fate and his love of his own farm girl, Engel, two years later.

It took Astrup three months before he was satisfied with the printing of “Fox Bells”. It was printed in at least five variants. Astrup cut down a couple of trees for the sake of the composition, the stumps are visible in the foreground.

Astrup only stayed in France for a short period returning to Norway in the Spring of 1902 and although we cannot see many of his Parisian work, his tutor at Académie Colarossi, Christian Krohg, was full of praise with what Nikolai had produced, saying:

“…His extraordinary talent has meant that he has, as if in a game, undergone the first development, which generally stops others for at least 10 years. (…) I believe that he will be the one who will best assert the position of Norwegian art both at home and abroad…”.

…………………to be continued.

Information for this blog was gleaned from various websites such as Wikipedia and:

Eilert Adelsteen Norman – The Norwegian Fjord painter.

If you are a lover of landscape paintings. If you have ever been seduced by the dramatic beauty nature offers up. If you have ever dreamt about cruising along a Norwegian fjord then this blog is especially for you. Our guide to the mesmerising beauty of nature is the nineteenth-century Norwegian landscape painter Eilert Adelsteen Normann.

Eilert Adelsteen Normann as a Young Man (possibly a self-portrait)

Eilert Adelsteen Normann was born on May 1st 1848 in the northern Norwegian coastal town of Bodin which lies on a peninsular between the great fjords of Vestfjorden and Saltfjorden. It is at the heart of a rough mountainous area full of beauty but only readily reachable by sea. Eilert Adelsteen was the second of six children, having four brothers and a sister. His father was Johan Normann, a merchant and hunting skipper as well as being a part-time farmer. His mother was Catharina Weitgan, the daughter of a shoe and umbrella maker.

The Tanks senior secondary school at Bergen

When Adelsteen was twelve years old he was sent to school in the city of Trondheim which was over four hundred miles from his home. He later transferred to the Tanks Videregående Skole, a senior secondary school which had just opened in new premises in Bergen five years earlier. In 1869, when Adelsteen was twenty-one-years-old, tragedy struck the family when his eldest brother was killed at sea in a shipping accident in the Bay of Biscay. Adelsteen was now the oldest of his siblings and it fell on his shoulders to take up the mantle of heir to his father’s trading business which was based on the island of Vågøya. It was for this reason that he went to Copenhagen to study business practices which would stand him good stead when the time came to run the family business.

Trollfjord in Lofoten near Vesterålen by Adelsteen Normann

I have not been able to find out what happened in Copenhagen but all I know is that in that same year he arrived there to study business, 1869, he left and travelled to Düsseldorf and enrolled on a three-year course at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where he studied under Andreas Müller and later Albert Flamm and Eugen Dücker, the Baltic German romanticist painter, famed for his landscape and marine works.

Seashore at Tiskre by Eugen Ducker (1866)

Dücker headed up the landscape class at the Academy. Adelsteen Normann became part of the Düsseldorf School of Painting. The paintings of this School were typified by delicate and detailed landscapes, that were sometimes imaginary and often focused on a religious or allegorical story with a landscape setting.

In 1872, despite only having studied art for three years at the Düsseldorf Academy Normann exhibited some of his landscape paintings, featuring Norwegian fjords, at an exhibition in Düsseldorf and some were purchased by the Düsseldorf Art Association. More were bought up by the art associations of Lubeck and Leipzig. In June 1872 he exhibited and sold more of his work at the Nordic Industrial and Art Exhibition in Copenhagen which was held between June and November. The Danish-Prussian War of 1864 was over, and the conservative Hojre political party had control of the Danish parliament and they wanted to join the world’s fair movement to show off the country’s progress in agricultural (which had suffered during recent years) industrial, and the arts. Visitors attending the Exhibition during the nearly five-month run was over six hundred thousand and once again many of Normann’s paintings of the Norwegian fjords were sold.

From 1869 until Adelsteen Normann lived in Germany but he and his family would return most summers to Western Norway, the northernmost parts of Nordland and the rugged area around Lyngen, a municipality in Troms county, where he would find more and more spectacular landscapes to paint. He would sketch and photograph the scenery and return to his studio in Dusseldorf and Berlin to complete the paintings.

Adelsteen Normann left Dusseldorf in 1883 and went to live in Berlin. He continued to return each summer to Norway and in 1890, he bought a plot of land in Sjøtun, an area nestling on the edge of Kattfjord, and set amongst the spectacular mountains on the island of Kvaløya. This idyllic location was only 40 minutes from Tromsø and had a spectacular view overlooking the Sognefjord. The following year he then purchased his house which arrived in pre-fabricated kit form from a company in Trondheim who had their men erect the structure. It was a “dragon style” house with lots of wood carvings and dragon figures. Normann’s dragon-style villa was the first to be built by an artist in this particular style, and it became the prototype for the ones that came later. These houses in Balestrand became a special talking point of the town and were to become very important for the town’s tourism and so have always been well preserved. Normann’s summer house at Balestrand remained with his heirs until 1934.

During his time at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Normann became friendly with fellow student Hans Dahl, a fellow Norwegian. Dahl’s Norwegian landscapes depicting the mountains and fjords were similar to Normann’s works but Dahl nearly always included figures in his landscapes.

It was Adelsteen Normann who advised Dahl to build a villa in Balestrand and three years after Normann’s own residence was completed, Dahl had his own erected. It was called Villa Strandheim.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (left) with Hans Dah (centre) l in the garden of Villa Strandheim

Hans Dahl and Adelsteen Normann were close friends of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. Like Normann, Dahl returned to Balestrand from Germany each summer and Dahl organised large garden parties at Villa Strandheim. It was here that the Emperor was a regular guest. In 1910 the Dahl’s son Hans Andreas Dahl built a studio near his father’s villa.

Northern Norway fishing village by Eilert Adelsteen Normann (1880)

Whilst living in Germany, Normann married Catharina Hubertine Weitgan who came from the Rheinland. The couple had 4 children: Emma, Otto, Olga and Walter. When Catharina died in 1911, sixty-three-year-old Normann re-married that same year. His second wife was Luise Rostalski, who was thirty-five-years younger than her husband. Together they had a son called Adelsteen.

Sunset over the Fjord by Adelsteen Normann

Normann exhibited his works in a number of venues in Europe including the important Salon de Paris from as early as 1882. His works earned a ‘Mention Honorable’ in the 1884 Salon and he was awarded a bronze medal in 1889. In Berlin Normann became well-known both as an artist and as a board member of the Verein Berliner Künstler and he established a school for painters.

Evening. Melancholy, by Edvard Munch (1891). Oil, pencil and crayon on canvas.

During his annual visit back to Norway in 1891, Normann took the opportunity to exhibit some of his fjord landscapes in Oslo, at the Kristiania Art Society, at the same time that the young Edvard Munch was exhibiting some of his paintings in the city. including his work, Evening. Melancholy. Normann was so impressed that in 1892, on behalf of the Verein Berliner Künstler (Society of Berlin Artists), he invited Edvard Munch to present his work at the Society’s November exhibition. Twenty-eight-year-old Munch felt flattered by Normann’s invite and agreed to come. He felt honoured to put his work before famous and established artists and hopefully his work would be seen by more sophisticated and knowledgeable public in Berlin.

Evening on Karl Johan by Edvard Munch (1892)

Munch arrived in Berlin with more than fifty-five works. It was the Society’s first one-man exhibition. Munch and Normann collaborated in preparing the exhibition, which was held at the newly built Architektenhaus. Was the exhibition a success? No, in fact it was a disaster. It appears the Society was not ready for Munch’s Symbolist artistic style which some of the members hated. The society members either loved them or hated them. The majority of members described Munch’s images as being repugnant, ugly and mean, and they caused an outrage. The Verein (The Association of Berlin Artists) held an extraordinary meeting on November 11th, and in a vote of 120 to 105, it was decided to close the exhibition after just one week, leaving Munch perplexed as to why he had been invited in the first place. The row over the merit of Munch’s one-man exhibition and the scandal following the early closing of it caused a number of the younger Society members, who were not prepared to put up with such an insult to an invited guest, broke away from the traditionalist stance of the Verein and joined together to form what they termed a “free association for the organization of artistic exhibitions”. They organized an art exhibition in the spring of 1892 as Die Elf. They did not however leave the main Society, so as to ensure the opportunity to display their work at its future exhibitions.

The dispute regarding Munch and his artwork shattered the art society! So how did Munch look upon the disaster? In Arne Eggum’s 1984 book, Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies, Munch was amused and was quoted as saying:

“…Never have I had such an amusing time—it’s incredible that something as innocent as painting should have created such a stir…”

August Strindberg by Edvard Munch (1892)

The exhibition went on to later showings in Düsseldorf and Cologne before returning to Berlin. During Munch’s four years in Berlin while fraternising with like-minded artists and writers, such as his close friend August Strindberg, at a bar called the Black Piglet, Munch created some of his major and best-known works, including The Scream, The Vampire and Madonna. The exhibition and the humiliating effect it had on the Verein Berliner Künstler was well documented at the time, but for Munch, it resulted in the start of his international fame.

Adelsteen Normann was one of the favourite painters of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who loved his landscape works featuring the Norwegian fjords. Most of Normann’s paintings depicted Norwegian fjord landscapes as well as modern life in Norwegian fjord villages with steam-driven cargo ships and large tourist ships. Normann, through his landscape works, is credited with making Norwegian fjords a popular tourist destination, especially with the upper classes, who would also buy his paintings as a memento of their travels. In the early 1890s, whilst living in Berlin he was also doing good business selling his paintings to hotel owners

Fishing vessels on a Norwegian fjord by Adelsteen Norman

Adelsteen Normann was a regular exhibitor. He received recognition for his work and was awarded many medals and awards, for his paintings including the Prince of Wales Medal 1874, Médaille d’honneur at the Salon in 1884 and a gold medal in Lyon in 1889. In 1897, he was appointed Knight of the 1st Class of the St. Olav Order. He has many paintings in museums around the world as well as in private collections.

In his later life, Normann was afflicted with asthma and in 1917, on medical advice, he returned to Norway. Despite his illness he carried on painting. Unfortunately for Normann who was already suffering breathing problems due to his asthma he was ill equipped physically to withstand the Spanish flu epidemic which swept across Norway in 1918. In Norway the epidemic killed between 13,000-15,000 people, most of them during the autumn of 1918 and mostly from pneumonia or pulmonary complications.

Adelsteen Norman died in Kristiania (Oslo) on December 26th 1918 aged 70. The urn containing his ashes was returned to the Stahnsdorfer Waldfriedhof, in Berlin.

Harriet Backer. Part 2 – The later years.

Harriet Backer’s younger sister, Agathe Ursula, became a much-heralded concert pianist and composer, who at the age of twenty-eight, married the conductor and singing teacher Olaus Andreas Grøndahl in 1875, and was thereafter known as Agathe Backer Grøndahl. When she was eighteen years of age, she studied composition under Theodor Kullak at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Berlin, where she lived together with her sister Harriet Backer. Maybe it was because of her time with her sister and during her concert tours that a number of Harriet’s paintings featured people playing the piano. Her most memorable work with that motif is her 1887 painting, Chez Moi which is housed at the Nordnorske Museum in Tromso. Once again, we are aware of Harriet using a similar motif to some of her earlier works, a single person in a room lit by light emanating from a large window. This once again highlights her accomplished technique of depicting light and shadow and how various items in the room are affected by the conditions of the light. Look at the picture frame high-up close to the window. We cannot see the painting in the frame but what she has cleverly depicted is the reflection of the slatted blind on the glass of the picture frame. Again, I would ask you to carefully study the details in this work and avoid taking things for granted. Look how she has managed to depict the texture of the green velvet chair seats. Look carefully at the chairs themselves and the way she has, through clever use of colours, brought the wood to life. The trompe l’oiel affect she has created with the depiction of the music sheets on the piano by use of shading gives them a real three-dimensional look. There is so much detail in this work which needs to be studied. Never just glance over a work of art. Take your time and examine every facet and then you will be able to appreciate the talent of a painter. It is interesting to note she never painted her sister Agathe at the piano, albeit, she did use her as a model in some of her other paintings.

Storrebror spiller (Big Brother Playing) by Harriet Backer (1890)

Harriet Backer was awarded the State Travel Scholarship for three years in 1886. Whilst staying in Paris she was part of the artists’ circle which centred around the well-respected Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright, Jonas Lie and his wife Thomasine Lie. Their daughter Asta Lie Isaachsen was a model in several of Harriet’s pictures, such as in the painting Chez moi. The painting went on to be awarded with a silver medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. In 1890, it was purchased for the National Gallery in Oslo.

Landskap fra Ulvin (Landscape from Ulvin) by Harriet Backer (1889)

Although Harriet based herself in Paris, she returned to Norway each summer and explored the beautiful landscapes for inspiration for her paintings. One example of this genre was her 1889 plein air work, Landskap fra Ulvin (Landscape from Ulvin). It is a work which encapsulates the wonderful colours of the intense Norwegian summer. This work is housed in the Drammens Museum in Drammen, a town to the south-west of Oslo. Sadly, very few of her landscapes are in public galleries, most being in private hands.

Landscape in Cernay-la-Ville by Harriet Backer (1887)

It was not just the Scandinavian landscapes which Harriet encapsulated in her paintings I particularly like a painting she completed around 1887 entitled Landscape in Cernay-la-Ville. Cernay-la-Ville is a small town which lies ten miles south-west of Paris and lies in the heart of the Forest of Rambouillet. In this landscape work Backer has reverted to her favoured motif of adding a single figure to a depiction. The various greens she has used in the painting are contrasted by the white bark of the silver birch trees. It is a painting which oozes calmness and tranquillity.

To barn og tregruppe (Two children and a group of trees) by Harriet Backer (1885)

To barn og tregruppe (Two children and a group of trees) was another of her plein air works and is a prime example of her summer landscapes. Painting en plein air was very popular at the time in Paris. It could well be that she started the depiction outside and then took it back to her studio to complete it.

In 1888, she moved back to Norway permanently and settled in Sandvika, in the municipality of Baerum, on the outskirts of Christiania and it was here that she started giving private painting lessons. This led to her running a much sought-after painting school from 1889 until 1912, where many aspiring artists of the next generation studied. Her training proved to be of great importance as a link between the French academic tradition which she was a part of, and the new approach of the younger painters. Harriet Backer held a special position in Scandinavian art. Her art linked the realism of the late 1800s and important modern directions art took at the beginning of the 20th century.

It was during this period in her life that she focused on interiors, including those illuminated by lamplight. She began to paint interiors by lamplight, resulting in long shadows which gave the rooms a sense of mystery. At this time, she began to paint church interiors. This was a new subject for her. In 1892 whilst living in Sandvika she visited the nearby church of Tanum and it was the interior of this church which was to be featured in a number of her best-known paintings. Tanum church is one of two medieval churches in Bærum, not far from Sandvika. It was built in around 1100-1130. It is a Romanesque church, with frescoes from the 1300s, and medieval sculptures.

Christening in Tanum Church, (Harriet Backer, 1892)

Christening in Tanum Church (Barnedåp i Tanum kirke) is Harriet Backer’s 1892 oil on canvas painting, which she exhibited at the Autumn Exhibition (Høstutstillingen) in Oslo during that year. A year later the painting was exhibited at the Chicago World Exposition. It is currently on display at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. The painting depicts the interior of the church where a christening is about to be held. Our viewpoint is from the darkened centre aisle of the church looking towards the open doors, through which the strong light of day can be seen streaming in. In the background we see two ladies and a man standing at the doorway waiting to enter. The lady in the centre is cradling a baby in her arms as she walks towards the church. In the right foreground of the painting we see a woman sitting on the bench at the back of the church eagerly turning around to witness the arrival of the christening party. Look at the various tones of brown Backer has used to depict the floor and pews and how it contrasts well to the blue and white structure behind the pews.

Entrance Wives by Harriet Backer, (1892)

Another of Harriet Backer’s paintings featuring Tanum Church with a connection to christening and childbirth is her 1892 work entitled Inngangskoner which literally translates to Entrance Wives but is often simply referred to as Women in Church. This painting depicts a traditional local custom where mothers were blessed before attending church services after having given birth. After a child’s birth, women could not step into the church room without having been blessed and cleansed by the priest. The fact that it was painted around the same time as Christening in Tanum Church could mean that the two paintings were pendant pieces. Once again, this painting by Backer is a study of light and shade and how light affects that which it falls upon. To do this she has used a muted palette to give emphasis to the shaded area, where the women kneel with heads bowed in prayer, in stark contrast opposed to the eruption of colours as daylight hits the church windows illuminating part of the interior. Harriet Backer’s artistic skills are on display here, in the way she captures the variously illuminated surfaces as the sunlight strains into the shadowy interior of the church. The view from the church interior and out into the open allows for a striking perspective.

The Library of Thorvald Boeck by Harriet Backer (1902)

Harriet Backer received a commission for a painting depicting a room in the house of Thorvald Olaf Boeck. It was not just any room in his house but his beloved library. Boeck was a Norwegian civil servant, and book collector who was known for assembling what was the largest private library of its time in Norway.

The Sandvik River by Harriet Backer (1890)

Harriet Backer’s output during her lifetime was quite small, with approximately 180 pictures. It must be remembered that she started late and her painting methodology was to work thoroughly and slowly. Notwithstanding this, as early as the mid-1880s, she was acknowledged as one of the leading artists of her generation and in recent years, her paintings have drawn considerable international attention.

In Trefoldighets Church by Harriet Backer (1908)

Harriet Backer was not only a practicing artist but played an important role in the cultural life of her country. For twenty years between 1898 and 1918 Harriet was a member of Oslo’s National Gallery’s board and purchasing committee, and in 1914 she was elected member of the jury for the jubilee exhibition in Christiania, as well as being part of the jury for the decoration of Bergen Stock Exchange in 1918.

In 1889 she became an honorary member of The Norwegian Student Society. In 1908, she received the King’s merit medal in gold, and in 1925 she was appointed knight of the 1st class of St. Olav’s Order, the same year she was elected to the Academy of the Free Arts in Stockholm and received the State Artist’s salary from 1921.

Harriet Backer, who never married, died in Oslo on March 25th, 1932, aged 87. She is buried with her parents at Vår Frelsers Cemetery (Cemetery of our Saviour) in Oslo, a resting place for many noble Norwegians, such as Edvard Munch and Henrik Ibsen. The Norwegian sculptor, Ada Madssen designed a bronze statue of Harriet Backer and her sister Agathe Backer Grøndahl which was erected in 1982 in their hometown of Holmestrand.

Harriet Backer. Part 1 – The early years

My blog today continues to look at the life and works of nineteenth-century female Scandinavian artists. In my last blog about the Swedish painter, Julia Beck, I talked about her time in Paris and how she had shared a studio with three other Scandinavian artist, one of whom was the young Norwegian artist, Harriet Backer. HarrietBacker is now considered to be one of her generation’s foremost Norwegian painters.

Harriet Backer was born on January 21st 1845 in Holestrand, a small coastal town in the south-east of the country, some sixty kilometres south of Oslo. Her father was Nils Backer, a prosperous ship owner and merchant and her mother was Sofie Smith Petersen, who came from a wealthy shipping family based at Grimstad. Her father was a very religious man, but of a free-spirited direction that would also influence his daughters in later life.

Harriet was the second-born of four daughters. Her elder sister Inga Agathe was born in 1842. She also had two younger sisters, Agathe Ursula, born in 1847, who was to play an important part in Harriet’s life, and Margrethe who was born in 1851. Harriet and her sisters were brought up in a wealthy home but their parents chose a frugal lifestyle. In 1856,when Harriet was eleven years old, her family moved from Holestrand to Christiania (now Oslo) where her father set up the company Becker and Backer. The following year, Harriet attended Mrs Wilhemine Autenrieth’s girls’ school, where she received an all-round education including learning foreign languages. She also received her first lessons in drawing and painting, with Joachim Calmeyer. In 1860 following graduation, Harriet enrolled at the women’s class at the painting school run by J. F. Eckerberg. In 1863, at the age of eighteen, Harriet had to decide how best to earn money and enrolled on a one-year governess course at Hartvig Nissen’s school in Christiania. It was the second oldest school in the Norwegian capital and was widely deemed to be one of the country’s most prestigious and was the first higher education institution in Norway to admit females. The school was privately owned, usually by its headmasters.

Harriet’s parents encouraged their very gifted children to develop a love for the arts. The girls spent hours reading and have an interest in music and their third daughter, Agathe Ursula, was soon discovered to have an extraordinary musical talent and between 1865 and 1867 she became a pupil of Theodor Kullak and studied composition under Richard Wuerst at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Berlin where she lived together with her sister Harriet Backer who acted as her chaperone. Through her piano playing expertise, Harriet’s sister, Agathe, now an accomplished concert pianist, travelled throughout Europe and often Harriet would accompany her and the two sisters visited such places as Berlin, Weimar, Cologne, Leipzig, Copenhagen, Florence, Rome and Naples. During the periods when Agathe was engaged in teaching music or performing Harriet would occupy herself by visiting the city art museums and often spent hours copying the paintings of the old masters. Whilst the sisters were living in Berlin, Harriet would visit the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and copy paintings under the guidance of the German painter, Alphons Holländer. Later in life when she taught art she would remind students how important it was to copy and appreciate the art of the old masters. In those earlier days accompanying her sister, besides visiting art museums and practicing her art she would dedicate a lot of her time to writing. This was the great love of her life at this time. She enjoyed writing short stories and poems and even embarked on writing a novel.

Harriet Backer’s “Aften, interiør” (Evening, interior).

Harriet would return to Christiania between periods chaperoning her sister during her European tours and when home studied art under Christian Brun. Between the years of 1871-1874, she attended the women’s class at the Knud Bergslien’s painting school. The great Norwegian painter Johan Fredrik Eckersberg had established an art school on Lille Grensen in Christiania and following his death in 1859 the school continued under the leadership of Knud Bergslien and his fellow artist, Morten Muller.

Portrait of Knud Bergslien by Johanne Mathilde Dietrichson

Knud Bergslien served as the director of what became known as the Bergslien School of Painting (Bergsliens Malerskole) and a whole generation of Norwegian painters became his students. It was during her time here that Harriet decided that she would become a professional artist.

Lille Rødhette (Little Red Riding Hood),by Harriet Backer (1872)

Harriet Backer proved to be an excellent student producing many exceptional works of art. One of her outstanding paintings at the time was her 1872 work entitled Lille Rødhette, although we would know it as Little Red Riding Hood. It was her amazing ability to realistically depict people, in this case, an older woman and a young girl, that led her along the path of becoming a portrait painter.

Portrait of Kitty Kielland by Harriet Backer (1880)

In 1874, twenty-nine year old Harriet left Norway and travelled to Germany and the city of Munich. At that time, Munich was the place the elite Norwegian painters gathered, and it was here that she met and became a lifelong friend with another Norwegian landscape painter, Kitty Kielland. Kielland had left Karlsruhe for Munich in 1875 where she joined a colony of Norwegian artists living there. Harriet, like Kielland, received private training in portraiture for four years with the Norwegian painter Eilif Peterssen who was based at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, but, because at that time women did not have access to the art academy in Munich, they were therefore dependent on private teachers.

The Farewell (also known as Avskjeden by Harriet Backer (1878)

Eilif Peterssen, like Harriet had received some of his artistic training at the painting school of Knud Bergslien in Christiania. Sometime during this period Harriet decided to veer away from portraiture per se and became interested in figurative drawing within the setting of an interior. A prime example of this genre was her 1878 painting entitled The Farewell (Avskjeden) which is housed in the National Museum of Art in Oslo. The painting depicts the emotional departure of a daughter from her parents. The daughter lovingly lays her hand on her father’s shoulder whilst her mother turns her back on them both as she cries in the corner. A porter carrying her luggage is also added to the scene.

Why did Harriet depict such a sad moment? The reason could well be that the year before, in January 1877, her father, Niels died and despite her mother’s wish that she should return home, Harriet told her that she would not be leaving Germany to care for her. No doubt this rebuttal surprised her mother but her daughter explained in a letter to her mother that art was her professional vocation, and it must take precedence over her duties as a daughter. Harriet had no intention of returning and living permanently in Norway as she wanted to carry on with her artistic career in Europe. One can only imagine how upset her mother would have been at that news. Maybe the painting was a reflection of Harriet’s abandoning her mother.

Following her refusal to return to Norway, Harriet moved to Paris and shared spacious lodgings with four Scandinavian painters, the Swedish painters, Julia Beck, Hildegard Thorell, Anna Norstedt and Elizabeth Keyser and in 1880, and for the next eight years, Harriet shared an apartment with Kitty Kielland who had also left Munich for the French capital. Harriet became a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme, and for a short time was tutored by Jules Bastien-Lepage. In 1880 she had her first painting exhibited at the Paris Salon. It was entitled Solitude. The depiction was of a genre she had begun to favour – figure(s) in the interior of a house. However, there was a subtle difference between this work and the previous one as this work depicted a room interior which was not fully lit and the resulting depiction was greeted well by the art critics. Harriet decided that this type of depiction was the way forward. It received an “Honourable Mention” when it was exhibited at the Salon.

One of Harriet Backer’s masterpieces was painted during the time she lived in Paris. It is her 1883 work entitled Blått interiør (Blue Interior). The depiction of a woman sitting in front of a sunlit window is a similar motif to her 1880 painting Solitude. In this work, there is a definite hint of Impressionism about the work in her use of colour. The “blue-ness” is captivating. Impressionism was very popular at this time in Paris with the seventh Impressionist exhibition being held the year before. In the work we see a young woman seated before a window through which daylight streams in illuminating the figure and parts of the room. Added to this study of light, we have the mirror in the background in which we see reflections of items in the room. The model for Harriet’s painting was a fellow Norwegian artist and close friend, Asta Nørregard who had been attending classes with Harriet.

..…………………………………….to be continued

The Krohg Family. Part 2 – Oda Krohg the Bohemian Princess

I start this second blog about the Krohg family by delving back in history…..

Christian Fredrik Jacob von Munthe af Morgenstierne was a descendent of Bredo Munthe of Bekkeskov, who on 19 December 1755 was ennobled under the name von Munthe af Morgenstierne. Christian married Anastasia Sergiewna Soltikoff, a Russian princess in 1836 and the couple went on to have six children. The second eldest was a daughter, Alexandra Cathrine Henriette von Munthe af Morgenstierne who was born on March 5th, 1838. On May 8th, 1857 in Christiania (Oslo), at the age of nineteen, she married Christian Carl Otto Lasson, a government attorney. Over the next seventeen years Alexandra gave birth to eleven children, the third of whom was a daughter, Othilia Pauline Christine Lasson who was born on June 11th, 1860. Othilia Lasson became known as Oda Lasson, and would eventually become Oda Krohg.

A subscriber to the Aftenposten by Oda Krohg (1887)

Oda Lasson was brought up in an intellectual bourgeois environment with artistic, especially musical interests. Hers was a large family, which consisted of her parents, eight sisters and two brothers. When she was twenty-one years old she married a businessman, Jørgen Engelhardt. The couple had two children, a daughter Sacha in 1882 and a son, Frederik in 1883. Oda and her husband split up shortly after the birth of their second child and she left the family home with her two children. However, it would be another five years before Oda and Jørgen were officially divorced.

It was also around 1883 that Oda Lasson decided to follow her love of art and in January 1884 she enrolled at a private painting school for ladies in Christiania which was run by Christian Krohg and Erik Werenskiold. Before attending this school, she had had n0 formal art education, but she was a willing student and soon began to progress with her art. The first painting she exhibited was entitled Ved Christianiafjorden (japansk lykt) (At the Oslofjord (Japanese Light). This is now in the National Gallery of Oslo.

Portrait of Christian Krohg by Oda Krohg (1903)

A close relationship developed between Oda and her art tutor, Christian Krohg and soon they became lovers which culminated on August 8th, 1885, with the birth of their first child Nana. Christian and Oda finally married in 1888 after her divorce from Jørgen Engelhardt was finalised. The following June, her second child, Per, was born during Christian Krohg and her stay at their summer residence in the coastal resort of Åsgårdstrand, about 100 km south of Oslo.

Poor little one by Oda Krohg (c.1900)
Christian Krohg and his daughter Nana

It was through her liaison with Krohg that Oda became part of the Bohemian movement of Christiania (Oslo), known as the Kristiania-bohemen and Oda soon became referred to as the Bohemian Princess due to her maternal ancestors. This small but conspicuous group of young students, artists and writers living in the capital shared radical and incisively critical views on bourgeois society. This group of upper-class intellectuals, writers, and artists dealt with controversial issues like urban poverty, prostitution, and sexual bigotry.

One such member was the artist Edvard Munch. One of the leading lights of this bohemian movement was Hans Jaeger, a one-time seaman, one-time philosophy student and part time government stenographer. He was a colourful and controversial figure who made himself spokesperson for free love during the early 1880’s and he strived to promote the importance of sexuality. The group wanted full sexual freedom between the sexes in the same social class – in practice the upper classes – and the abolition of the institution of marriage. Bizarrely, Jaeger wanted to establish a school for women, which among other things would educate them and make them conscious of their lusts and follow them, so that neither them nor the men would be robbed of their part of the wonders of life !!

Cover of Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen. A novel by Hans Jæger

Jaeger’s downfall came in 1885 with the publication of his novel Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen (From Christiania’s Bohemia). The novel which was set in Christiania, was about two men who lived in lodgings and spent their days drinking in cafés, discussing philosophy, literature, and society reforms. One of them ends his life by committing suicide, shooting himself after spending his last night with a prostitute. The book was immediately banned by the Ministry of Justice, and the police managed to confiscate most of the printed copies shortly after its publication. Jæger received a 60-day prison sentence for the infringement of modesty and public morals, and for blasphemy. He avoided part of the sentence by moving to Paris, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

Portrait of Hans Jaeger by Edvard Munch (1889)

Munch painted a portrait of Hans Jaeger in 1889. In the depiction we see Jaeger slouched on a sofa. He stares out at us through his spectacles. His facial expression is emotionless and there is a sense of aloofness. He is dressed in a tight-fitting overcoat and wears a wide-brimmed hat which is placed on his head at a jaunty angle. The light source is to the left and casts deep shadows creating flickers of red-violet, brown and blue green hues. For many years the painting remained in Munch’s possession and was shown in most of his exhibitions in the 1890s. In 1897 he offered it to the National Gallery in Oslo, which duly purchased it.

Oda Krohg and Jappe Nilssen, photo from 1891

Christian Krohg and Oda’s roles in the organisation may not be fully known but there are a couple of aspects of the Kristiania-bohemen group which had a part to play in their lives. The sexual freedom advocated by many in the group seemed to have an effect on Oda and Christian’s marriage as it was what is now often termed as, an “open marriage” and it is known that Oda, despite being married to Christian had a number of lovers, including Hans Jaeger, the Norwegian writer and art historian, Jappe Nilssen and the playwright Gunnar Heiberg. In Jaeger’s 1893 novel Syk Kjærlihet (Diseased Love), he describes a love triangle where he was strongly in love with a woman who was to marry an artist. It is believed that Oda was the model for the woman, and the book depicted the relation between himself, Oda and Christian during the summer and autumn of 1888.

Another aspect of Hans Jaeger’s philosophy which influenced Christian Krohg was Jaeger’s support of prostitutes and how he believed that the reason women turned to prostitution was due to the State’s social system.

In 1883 Krohg produced a painting entitled Madeleine. In the depiction we see a bleak and bare bedroom. A young woman sits on a thin mattress on a simple iron bedstead. From the little clothes she is wearing and the unmade nature of the bedding we think she is just getting up. However, what is more telling is her demeanour. Her body droops forwards and her head is cast downwards supported by her left hand. We are not allowed to see her face. Is she ashamed? In her right hand she seems to be holding a mirror. Has she been viewing her image? Is she unhappy at what she sees? It is thought that Krohg is portraying her as a “fallen woman” who is engaged in prostitution. Maybe her demeanour is one of sadness at what she has just done and is unable to come to terms with the shame. Like most paintings that seem to have a message it is up to the viewer to ponder on the possible story behind the image.

In 1886 Krohg wrote a novel, Albertine. The novel is set in Norway’s capital, Christiania, and looks at the plight of an unmarried but spirited seamstress Albertine, who is seduced by a police officer and because of her financial desperation and lack of support from the authorities, is forced into prostitution. The book caused a stir and embarrassed the authorities resulting in its confiscation of all copies the day after its publication. In 1888 the Supreme Court of Norway upheld the ruling, and Krohg was sentenced to pay a fine of 100 kr. Krohg went on to make a number of paintings based on the book and the world of prostitution.

Albertine at the Police Doctor’s Waiting Room by Christian Krohg (1887)

Christian Krohg painted a number of pictures based on his novel. In 1877 the most famous of these is his work entitled Albertine i politilægens venteværelse (Albertine at the Police Doctor’s Waiting Room) which is housed in the National Gallery in Oslo. The painting is set in a police station and depicts a number of women that have been arrested for being prostitutes. We see Albertine at the head of the queue at the door of the examination room where she will be examined by a doctor. She is dressed in a simple plain costume and is wearing a headscarf, unlike the garish clothes worn by the other women, which were the normal adornment of the “street workers” of the time.

The public outcry following the confiscation of the book finally led to a partial de-criminalising of prostitution in Norway. The change in the Penal Code in 1902 did not signal that prostitution was to become allowed by society. It did however accept that the exchange of sex in one’s own home was now legal but maintained that loitering and procurement on the streets or in a public place would remain illegal and that women arrested for selling sex in public were to be entered into rehabilitation programmes. Ironically, the current law in Norway which bans purchase of sex and any money earned is illegal and yet such money is taxable!!!!
Krohg’s book, Albertine, was published again in 1921 without any murmurs from the authorities.

The Struggle for Existence by Christian Krohg (1889)

It was not just the plight of prostitutes that featured in Krohg’s paintings. He was very interested in the state of poverty in his own country and his painting The Struggle for Existence was one of his major projects and also one of his finest works. The setting for the scene is Oslo’s main thoroughfare, Karl Johan Street, on a cold winter’s day. The street and pavements are covered in a slushy snow and the cold has almost freed the street of people with the exception of a crowd of poor women and children who are queuing for the chance to be given some free food. We see both women and children clutching empty baskets and cannisters which they hope to fill with food given to them. To the left we can make out a hand sticking out from behind the pillars which is holding a bread roll which is part of the free food. This could be a bakery and the baker has decided to give the poor some of yesterday’s stale bread. The people are poorly dressed in shabby and ragged clothing. In the middle of the street we observe a policeman walking towards the crowd but seemingly uninterested in what is happening.

Oda Krohg’s extra-marital relationship with the playwright Gunnar Heiberg became serious around 1897 and Oda declared she was in love with him. She left Oslo in 1897, and took her eight-year-old son, Per, and went to live with Heiberg in Paris. Christian also left the Norwegian capital in 1901 and moved to Paris where he became an art instructor at Académie Colarossi in 1902. Later Oda set herself up in an artist’s studio in Montparnasse and soon immersed herself into the art world of Paris meeting most of the leading artists including Henri Matisse. Having now established herself she began to exhibit her work at the Salon d’Automne. Oda’s restless nature kicked in once again and around this time she began a relationship with the poet and art critic Jappe Nilssen. When that finally died she returned to her husband, Christian and Oda along with their children left Paris and returned to Oslo in 1909 but would often return to Paris for long periods and did not final settle down in Oslo until 1911. From 1909 to 1925 Christian held the post of professor and director of the newly founded Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Oslo.

Five to Twelve by Christian Krohg (c 1924)

One of Christian Krohg’s last paintings which he completed a year before his death was entitled Five to Twelve. On the face of it, it appears to be a self-portrait and we see him with his long white beard, but almost bald, as he sleeps in a chair beneath a pendulum clock. The face of the clock is completely blank, but the title of the artwork tells us the time: it is five minutes to midnight, close to midnight and maybe meant to symbolise that it is close to the end of his life.

Grave of Christian Krohg and Oda Krohg at Vår Frelsers gravlund, Oslo, Norway.

In 1925, Krohg retired as the director of the State Academy of Art, and he died in Oslo a few months later, on 16 October, aged 73. Oda Krohg died exactly ten years later on October 15th 1935, aged 75. Christian and Oda are buried at the Cemetery of Our Saviour in Oslo.

Christian and Oda Krohg’s son, Per Lasson Krohg, who was born in Åsgårstrand, Norway in June 1889, followed in his parent’s footsteps and became an artist. As a teenager, he received his artistic training from his father and, when he was twenty years old, had Henri Matisse for a mentor. Per Lasson Krohg’s artistic work was varied and covered simple drawings on paper, to colour illustrations, and from designing posters to set design and sculpture, but he will probably be remembered mainly for the oil canvas mural he painted in 1952 for the United Nations Security Council Chamber, located in the United Nations building.

Mural at the United Nations Security Council Chamber by Per Lasson Krohg

It depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes, as a symbol of the world being rebuilt after the Second World War. Above the dark sinister colours at the bottom different images in bright colours symbolizing the hope for a better future are depicted. Equality is symbolized by a group of people weighing out grain for all to share.

Nana Krohg, Christian and Oda’s daughter was born in Brussels in the summer of 1885. At this time, Oda was still married to Engelhart and his living with Oda was passed off as a “study stay”. Nana Krohg’s art career was neither long nor particularly comprehensive. At the age of 18, she attended an art school and received tuition for the next two years from the Norwegian painter, Johan Nordhagen. Nana never became a professional artist and after her marriage to Anton Schweigaard around 1909, she simply used her artistic skills in design and homemaking for her own use. The couple had two children, Anton Martin and Line.

The Krohg Family – Part 1 – Christian Krohg. The early years and life at Skagen

The art of one of the painters I am looking at today was compartmentalised as being works of a Naturalism genre and also of a Realism genre. So what is Naturalism and how does it differ to Realism when appertaining to art?

The best way to describe Naturalism is to say that it is a type of art that pays attention to very accurate and precise details. It is painting which is true to what we see without any falsification or artistic interpretation. That sounds like Realism !

Naturalism was an artistic movement, which came into being in the mid-nineteenth century and embodied things closer to the way we observed them. Prior to this, depictions of landscapes or human beings tended to be idealised or rendered according to precepts resulting from the traditions of classical art. Naturalism was a denouncement of the fantasy world of Romanticism, which had flourished from the late eighteenth century into the first half of the nineteenth century. Naturalism is also often associated with plein air painting.

But is this not the definition of Realism? The two are close but Realism, especially Social Realism, focuses more on social realities and concentrates on content rather than the methodology of the work. Realism tends to deliberate on who or what is being painted rather than how it was painted and realist depictions often muse over ordinary people, who are often struggling with life. Often Realism paintings have a moralistic story to tell and they then tend to be viewed as a commentary on the social and political life of the day. Naturalism tends to be more about how the work has been painted ensuring that it is true to life.

Christian Krohg was born in Vestre Aker, a district of the city of Oslo on August 13^th 1852, the son of the journalist and publisher, Georg Anton Krohg and Sophie Amalie Holst. His paternal grandfather, Christian Krohg was a lawyer, government minister, and had at various times served as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Finance.

Christian was the second-born of their children and had four sisters, Anna Helene Nicoline, born in June 1850, Stine Marie, born in December 1854, Nanna born in January 1859, and Sophie Amalie Holst born in April 1861. Christian’s mother died on April 28th 1861, seven days after having given birth to Sophie and maybe in memory of her mother she was also named Sophie Amalie Holst. In June 1868 more sadness was to befall Christian’s family when Christian’s younger sister, Nanna, contracted tuberculosis and died, aged nine.

Still life with a D.O.M. Bottle by Christian Krohg (1883)
The D.O.M. stands for Deo Optimo Maximo which means – To God most good, most great.

Following his normal schooling Christian went to the Royal Frederick University (now the University of Oslo) in 1869 to study law, the plan, probably fostered by his father, being that he would become a lawyer, like his grandfather. However for Christian his main interest was art and maybe through an agreement with his father that if he studied for a law degree he would be allowed to also attend art classes at the local drawing schools. He attended both Johan Fredrik Eckersberg’s private art school from 1869 to 1870 and later the drawing class of Julius Middelthun, the Norwegian sculptor, at the Royal School of Art and Design of Christiana (Oslo).

Braiding her Hair by Christian Krohg (1888)

On April 13th 1873, during his university studies, Christian’s father Georg died, aged fifty-six. The following year, at the end of his five year law course, he attained a law degree but instead of practicing law he decided to travel to Germany with his friend and fellow artist, Eilif Peterssen and they both enrolled at the Baden School of Art in Karlsruhe, where two of his professors were Karl Gussow, the German Realist painter, and Hans Gude, the Norwegian Romanticist painter and one of Norway’s foremost landscape painters. Gude spent most of his adult life as a professor of art and was a leading figure in the advancement of Norwegian art. To young, aspiring Norwegian artists of the mid and late nineteenth century, Gude was a god and they would travel to Germany to enrol on courses taught by him at academies in Dusseldorf, Berlin and Karlsruhe.

Georg Brandes – sketch by P S Krøyer (1900)

Christian Krohg remained at the Baden School of Art in Karlsruhe for a year before moving on to the Berlin Academy in 1875, a move that had already been made by his former professor, Karl Gussow. Krohg remained in Berlin for three years. Whilst there he made friends with the German symbolist painter, Max Klinger and the Danish writer and philosopher, Georg Brandes. Brandes writings were centered on the concept of realism and were diametrically opposed to the world of fantasy in literature. He was looked upon as the founder of the Cultural Radicalism movement. According to Aarhus Universitet’s Institut for Kultur og Samfund, Cultural Radicalism can be looked upon as:

“…Cultural radicalism must be understood from its cultural and philosophical origins in the modern breakthrough in the last half of the 19th century, as well as from the actual roots of rationalism of enlightenment. In Denmark, cultural radicalism has rooted in the bourgeois radicalism of the 1870s and in the intellectual environment around the brothers Georg and Edvard Brandes and Viggo Hørup. The bourgeois radical ideas constituted a cultural battle against the authority of the church and the state, and they concerned in particular the right to individual expression, freedom of opinion and tolerance, and criticism of what was considered to be a restricted, oppressive and colorless civil culture…”

Charles Lundh in Conversation with Christian Krohg by Christian Krohg (1883)
Charles Lundh, a Norwegian painter, lived together with Christian Krohg and the Swedish painters Johan Krouthén and Oscar Björck in a house in Skagen in 1883

Krohg was very attentive to the views of Brandes and became more aware of the social and political problems of the time. These views were enhanced by the poor quality of his living standards during his time in Berlin, which almost bordered on out and out poverty More importantly for Krohg it was his friendship with Georg Brandes that led to him being introduced to Emile Zola, the great French writer, playwright and journalist. Zola was interested in the world of art and as a journalist in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s, he produced many newspaper articles defending the art of Cézanne, Manet, and the emerging Impressionists, such as Monet, Renoir and Degas, all of whom were being criticised by the artistic elite. It was also Zola who first coined the term Naturalism, defining it as a literary movement, which gave emphasis to observation and the methodology used in the fictional portrayal of reality.

It was in the following year, 1876, that Krohg exhibited his painting entitled A Farewell. For the time he concentrated on his portraiture and two works of note was his 1876 portrait of Lucy Eyeberg and his depiction of his friend Georg Brandes which he completed in 1879

The year 1879 was of great importance to Christian Krohg as it was during that summer that he first went to Skagen, a Danish fishing community on the north coast of Jutland. Christian and his fellow Norwegian painter and former fellow student in Karlsruhe, Frits Thaulow, travelled to Skagen in Thaulow’s small sailboat and remained there through to the end of autumn. Skagen had become a summer meeting place for artists in the late 1870’s and remained such up until the end of the nineteenth century.

Dining room in Brøndums Hotel (ca. 1891) showing some of the group and the panel of their portraits

It was because of its favourable natural light that it was so popular with the plein-air artists from Scandinavia, such as husband and wife artists, Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer and his wife Marie, Karl Madsen and Viggo Johansen, as well as painters from northern Europe. It was this fascination with the changing natural light that had also inspired the Impressionists. Many of the Skagen artists had spent time in Paris and they were influenced by the French Barbizon artists and the world of Realism. This style of painting was contrary to the inflexible conventions set out by academies such as The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, which believed students should adhere to painting in the favoured Academic styles of Historicism and Neoclassicism. Michael Ancher, Karl Madsen and Viggo Johansen had also studied at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.

The early members of the Skagen artistic community had been befriended by Brøndum family, who were the owners of a local shop/bar and soon it became the meeting place for the Skagen painters and their literary friends. Peder Severin Krøyer became very friendly with the Brøndum’s fifteen-year-old daughter Marie and six years later the pair were married.

Woman cutting bread by Christian Krohg (1879)

Christian Krogh became a regular summer visitor to Skagen during the mid and late 1880’s and it was during those times that he focused on one family, the Gaihede family, for the subject of many of his works. Husband and wife, Niels and Ana Gaihede, along with their son Rasmus and daughter-in-law, Tine and their two children Ane and Sofus. One such painting featured the matriarch of the family Ana Gaihede who modelled for Krohg’s 1879 painting Woman Cutting Bread. Sixty-six year old Ana is seen in three-quarter length profile against a blank background, save for three small pictures, which allows us to focus completely on the subject of the work. It is a fascinating depiction, which gives us an insight into the people and their culture of the time.

In another of Krohg’s works featuring the Gaihede family, The Net Mender, we see both Ana and her husband Niels depicted. In this 1880 work Niels can be seen repairing his fishing net whilst Ana sits stony-faced in the background making balls of fibre, which will be used in the repairing of the net. The walls of their home are a dull grey and the only thing breaking up the monotony of the colour are a few magazine pictures of animals and boats which may have been for the benefit of Sofus their six-year-old grandson. Looking at the interior furnishings of the home and the dress of the two characters one can detect a frugal standard of living, maybe not poverty-stricken but one in which every krone counts.

Christian Krohg won a state stipend in 1881 and travelled to Paris, where he taught at an art school for women. In those days most of the prestigious art establishments denied women access to art tuition and Krohg could see the error of this dictate and wanted to be supportive of the female cause. Maybe Krohg was sympathetic with regards the plight of women in general as it is known that at about this time he was also becoming more and more interested in painting pictures which highlighted people’s struggle with everyday life and especially the great effort women had to make just to survive.

In 1881 he completed a very poignant painting entitled The Sick Girl. It was the depiction of a girl who had been struck down by tuberculosis and was dying. Krohg would be painfully aware that this killer disease had also taken his youngest sister, Nanna, thirteen years earlier. It is a haunting depiction. The girl sits upright in a wooden chair with a cushioned back. A thick woollen blanket covers the lower part of her body. Look at the girl’s tight-lipped facial expression. It is a mixture of sadness and fear. Maybe she is aware that her life is ebbing away. Her hands are tightly clasped together, as if in prayer, as she clutches the stem of a pale pink rose, the leaves and petals of which are starting to fall to the ground. The rose like the girl is dying. One cannot help but be moved by such a depiction.

Babord litt (Port side) by Christian Krohg (1879)

During his time in the French capital he became influenced by the works of Édouard Manet and his modern scenes, which were often controversial. Even now, Manet is looked upon as the father of modernism. During his stay in Paris Krohg had two of his works accepted for the 1882 Salon. One of which was entitled Port Side, which he had started whilst living in Berlin but did not complete until 1879 whilst living in Skagen. It is a depiction of great detail. Look how Krohg has portrayed the clothes worn by the seaman. They have been well worn and impregnated with oil and dirt. They are old and have had to be patched and these details, along with the backdrop of the rough seas, add to the atmospheric mood of the work and we can sense how the bow of the vessel is about to dive headlong into the unforgiving swell.

During his stay in Paris Krohg had been very interested in the works of the leading French Social Realist painters of the time, Jules Breton, who was known for his depictions of peasant themes, Jules Bastien-Lepage, a painter noted for his sentimental naturalistic paintings of rural life and Léon Lhermitte, whose main theme for his paintings was also rural scenes depicting peasants at work.

Sovende mor med barn (Sleeping mother with child) by Christian Krohg (1883)

Krohg’s developing interest was the plight of women and their everyday trials and tribulations, which had to be overcome just to survive. Tiredness is one of the greatest afflictions that beset mothers with small children and Krohg’s 1883 painting Mother and Child highlights this perfectly. The work is housed in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo.

Again exhaustion features in his 1885 work simply entitled, Tired, which shows a young woman who has fallen asleep during working on her sewing machine.

In the second part of the blog about Christian Krohg and his family I will be looking at his fascination with and his depiction of “fallen women” and how it got himself into trouble with the authorities. I will also look at the life of his wife, Oda, and his unusual and sometimes turbulent marriage.

Eilif Peterssen

My featured artist today is one who produced many paintings of differing genres, such as history paintings, landscape and seascape paintings and portraiture.

Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was born on September 4th, 1852 in Christiania, (known as Oslo since 1925), and spent his early life in the Christiania borough of Frogner. He attended the local schools and at the age of seventeen enrolled at the city’s Johan Fredrik Eckersberg School of Painting. This painting school, on Lille Grensen in Christiania, had been established in 1859 by the Norwegian artist, Johan Fredrik Eckersberg. After Eckersberg’s death in 1870, the running of the school was taken over by two Norwegian painters Knud Bergslien and Morten Müller.

Eilif Peterssen by Peder Severin Kroyer (1883)

From there, in 1871, Peterssen went to Denmark and studied briefly at the Art Academy in Copenhagen. Later that year, Peterssen travelled to the German city of Karlsruhe where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts and was student of Ludwig des Coudres, the German history and portrait painter and first director of the academy, and the German landscape painter, Wilhelm Riefstahl. Also resident professor at the Academy was Hans Gude, who was considered to be one of Norway’s foremost landscape painters. Another painter who influenced Peterssen during his stay in Karlsruhe was the history painter Carl Friedrich Lessings and his richly landscaped landscapes with historical scenes. Lessings was a director at the Academy.

In the Autumn of 1873, Peterssen moved to Munich he became a pupil at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts and one of his tutors was Wilhelm von Diez, the German painter and illustrator of the Munich School. He also spent time studying under Franz von Lenbach.

Christian II signing the Death Warrant of Torben Oxe by Eilif Peterssen

Every successful artist needs to have had a breakthrough painting, one which announces his arrival on the art scene. For Peterssen his breakthrough work was an historical painting he completed in 1876 entitled Christian II Signing the Death Warrant of Torben Oxe. The story behind the depiction is from sixteenth century history of the Nordic countries. Christian II was the last Roman Catholic king of Denmark and Torben Oxe was a noble who was appointed Governor of Copenhagen Castle. In the summer of 1517, Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, the king’s mistress, fell ill and died and Torben Oxe was accused by Dyveke’s mother of her daughter’s murder by poisoning her through a box of cherries. Christian II believed the accusation and condemned his friend Oxe to death. In the painting we see Christian, unmoved by the momentous event, signing the death warrant. His wife, is at her husband’s left and is seen pleading with her husband for Oxe’s life. Oxe was beheaded, and his body burned.

Three Women in Church by Wilhelm Leibl (1878-81)

Eilif Peterssen’s portraiture had become very popular and besides his commissioned works he would paint many un-commissioned portraits of people. In my Daily Art Display of March 1^st, 2011, I showcased an oil on mahogany masterpiece by the acclaimed German realist artist Wilhelm Liebl entitled Three Women in a Church. He started the work in October 1878 and did not complete it until December 1881. It is a depiction of three women of three different generations, dressed in regional costumes, sitting in a church.

In 1878 Peterssen completed a very similar depiction, Under Salmesangen (In the Church). Again, like Liebl’s work, Peterssen has depicted three women of different generations sitting together. The old lady, dressed in widow’s garb is seated in the centre with her hands clasped in prayer and rosary beads dangling from her wrists. She looks upwards as she prays. Maybe she is asking for divine strength to carry on with life. To her right sits a young girl, curls of her red hair lay across her forehead and to the old lady’s left sits a young woman, who with folded hands, demurely peruses her hymn book. I like the way Peterssen has depicted the facial expression of the young woman – shy and demure, and lost in thought.

Judas Iskariot by Eilif Peterssen (1878)

In the same year he painted a religious work entitled Judas Iskariot which is housed in the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum in Tromso. The light from the lamp that Judas is carrying lights up the face of Christ. I am fascinated by Peterssen’s depiction of Christ’s facial expression in the painting.

Mary, Christ’s Mother by Eilif Peterssen (1877)

The previous year, 1877, Peterssen was invited to participate in a competition to produce an altarpiece for the newly built church of St Johannes in Oslo. He was then commissioned to paint a crucifixion scene part of which would be his depiction of the Virgin Mary entitled Mary, Christ’s Mother. The brown and red tones he used in this portrait were similar to the ones he used in his depiction of Judas Iscariot and was influenced by the brownish palette of the Munich School painters.

In 1879, aged twenty-seven, Eilif Peterssen married Nicoline Gram, the daughter of Major General Johan Georg Boll Gram, the Court Marshal.

Breakfast in Sora by Peder Severin Krøyer (1880)

Peterssen and his wife Nicoline visited Sora, a town in the Italian commune of Lazio, in 1880 together with the Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer, and this was captured in Krøyer’s painting Breakfast in Sora which depicted himself with Nicoline and Eilif Peterssen, and the painter Christian Meyer Ross.

Siesta i et osteria i Sora by Eilif Peterssen (1880)

Peterssen also documented his stay to the mountain village of Sora with his 1880 painting set in an Osteria, a place for serving wine and simple food, Siesta in an Osteria in Sora.

Kunstnerens hustru Nicoline Peterssen, født Gram (The Artist’s Wife Nicoline Peterssen, born Gram) by Eilif Peterssen

Sadly, the Peterssen’s marriage to Nicoline lasted just three years as Nicoline died in 1882, aged thirty-two. Eilif painted a picture of his wife entitled Kunstnerens hustru Nicoline Peterssen, født Gram (The Artist’s Wife Nicoline Peterssen, born Gram). I think it is a somewhat unflattering depiction of his wife.

Moonrise over the Dunes by Eilif Peterssen (1883)

A year after his wife’s death, Peterssen went to the Danish artist colony of Skagen in the summer of 1883. Since the 1870’s, the Northern Danish coastal village of Skagen was a summer meeting place for a group of Scandinavian artists, such as the husband and wife pair, Michael and Anna Ancher, Christian Krohg and Peder Severin Krøyer. The area around the village attracted the plein air artists because of its scenic delight and the quality of light. It was often compared to what the Barbizon School of painters found in and around the Forest of Fontainebleau. One painting completed during his stay at Skagen was his moonscape, Moonrise over the Dunes.

Petersen travelled around Europe, visiting France and Italy during the next couple of years including visiting Venice in 1885 accompanied by Frits Thaulow. Whilst visiting Paris in 1884 he completed a beautiful landscape work entitled Landscape from Meudon, France which is a depiction of the Seine riverside by the town of Meudon, a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Portrait of Edvard Grieg by Eilif Peterssen (1891)

Peterssen eventually returned to Norway in 1886 and established himself as a skilful portrait artist.

Portrait of Norwegian Author Henrik Ibsen by Eilif Peterssen (1895)

Two well-known Norwegian personalities featured in portraits by Peterssen, the composer Edvard Grieg and the writer Hendrik Ibsen.

It was in 1886 that Peterssen completed his most famous work and one which caught my eye and one that made me research into his life and other works. The oil on canvas painting was entitled Sommernatt (Summer Night), which is housed in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design – The National Gallery, Oslo, came about when Peterssen along with a group of artist friends, including Norwegian painters Christian Skredsvig, Gerhard Munthe, Kitty Kielland, Harriet Backer, and Erik Werenskiold, some of whom he had met whilst a student in Munich stayed at a farmstead in Fleskum, just outside of Oslo which was owned by painter and writer, Christian Skredsvig, who like Peterssen was a pupil at the Eckersberg drawing and paint school in Christiania and a student at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. In the history of Norwegian art, the Fleskum artists’ colony was a significant breakthrough of plein-air painting in Norway and heralded the arrival of Neo-Romanticism in Norway. Peterssen’s Summer Night was the most important to come out from that 1886 Fleskum gathering. As observers we stare down at the still water of the lake during the last light of a summer’s day. Strangely, there is little shown of the sky, but the reflection of the crescent moon is a reminder of the clear sky above. Some have suggested at a hint of symbolism with this painting with the contrast between the sturdy upright tree in the right foreground and the dead birch tree, to the left, which has died and rotting, having fallen lifelessly into the lake. Is this symbolic of life itself, from sturdy youthful growth to inevitable death?

The following year, 1887, Peterssen completed his painting Nocturne, which was the same view of the lake as in his Summer Night painting, but this time he has added some flowers, and a nude.

In 1888, six years after his first wife died, Peterssen re-married. His second wife was Frederikke Magdalene (“Magda”) Kielland, daughter of Lieutenant Commander Jacob Kielland.

Sunshine, Kalvøya by Eilif Peterssen (1891)

Like many painters in the late nineteenth century Peterssen was aware of the work of the French Impressionists. One of his works which is often likened to Impressionism style, with its broad-brush strokes used to depict the foliage, was his 1891 work entitled Sunshine Kalvøya, which is one he painted whilst he and his wife were on the island of Kalvøya, which lies off the town of Sandvika, about twenty miles west of Oslo. This is a depiction of Peterssen’s second wife and so the painting is often referred to as Magda Sewing. We see her absorbed in her needlework surrounded by a lush green landscape, lit up by the full summer sun. It is a veritable depiction of peace, tranquillity, and contentment

From the Norwegian Archipelago by Eilif Peterssen (1894),

One of Peterssen’s favourite haunts was Sele on the west coast of Norway and the views of the many small islands separated by the branchlike Inner Leads which separate the small islands. His 1894 painting, From the Norwegian Archipelago, depicts a view of these inner leads. In the right foreground of this exquisite work we see a woman standing amongst the low vegetation. She is wearing traditional clothes and is busy with her knitting. She leans back against a low multi-coloured dry-stone wall. On the other side of the lead we see several red roofed houses and crofts. A sailing boat in full-sail goes past, navigating the blue waters.

Kveld, Sele (Gedine on a Hillock) by Eilif Peterssen (1896)

Another painting completed by Peterssen in 1896 was set in Sele. It is entitled Kveld, Sele (Gedine på haugen) – Evening, Sele (Gedine on a Hillock). The painting takes in the beautiful colours brought on by the setting of the sun at dusk. In the foreground we see a young girl, Gedine, a friend of Peterssen sitting on a hillock made of large grey stones. She is lost in contemplation as she gazes out across the flat landscape towards the sea.

On the Look-out by Eilif Peterssen (1889)

A third painting completed by Peterssen and set on Sele which I really like, is his 1889 work entitled On the Look-out. In the painting we see five men, four lying on the sand and one seated, all gazing seawards, almost certainly trying to catch a glimpse of the returning fishing fleet.

Old House in Normandy by Eilif Peterssen (1896)

Eilif Peterssen, during his lifetime, made several trips to France and Italy. In 1896 he went to Arques-la-Bataille, a small commune in the Seine-Maritime department of Normandy, a few miles south of Dieppe. It is a beautiful area where three rivers, Eaulne, Varenne and Béthune converge and in close proximity of the Forest of Arques. It was during his time here that he completed several landscape paintings including Old House in Normandy.

At the start of the twentieth century Peterssen became interested in Symbolism and was influenced by the colourful work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Around this time, he completed a number of works focused on French medieval legends. Even during his later life Peterssen continued to travel tirelessly around his own country and even though a few years from his seventieth birthday he was still able to make the long journey to the South of France visiting the small towns of Cagnes and St Paul in Provence.
Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen died in Lysaker, a town close to Oslo, on December 29th 1928, aged 76.

Frits Thaulow. Part 2 – the realist landscape painter.

Many of Thaulow’s best known Norwegian scenes are from Åsgårdstrand, a town 100 km south of Oslo. It had become a significant centre for artists and painters from the 1880’s. The town had been home to many internationally famous painter, such as Edvard Munch, Christian Krogh, and Hans Heyerdahl, who had either visited or lived in the town. Again, like Skagen, the reason it was popular with painters was because of its unique light which the best artists wanted to depict in their works.

Street in Kragerø by Frits Thaulow (1882)

Thaulow visited the Norwegian coastal town of Kragerø which was, and still is, a place where people went to “get away from it all”. It was a location which the great Norwegian painter Edvard Munch fell in love with, calling it ” Perlen blandt kystbyene (The Pearl of the Coastal Towns). The town of Kragerø is characterized by clear, blue water and beautiful views.

Houses in Kragerø by Frits Thaulow (1882)

However, in one of Thaulow’s paintings of the town, Houses in Kragerø, we see a more realistic depiction of it. Gone are the blue water and beautiful views and instead we see an everyday view of the backs of the old houses with clothes pegged to a washing line fluttering in a strong breeze. There is a lack of bright colours, a lack of blue skies, just a simple depiction of an area of the town, “warts and all”.

Haugsfossen ved Modum by Frits Thaulow (1883)

In 1883 after a visit to Blaafarveværket, a cobalt mining and industrial company located at Amort in Modum in the Norwegian county of Buskerud, some thirty miles west of Oslo. Here there is the spectacular Haugsfossen waterfall and it was here that Thaulow completed his 1883 painting entitled Haugsfossen ved Modum. It is a spectacular painting and once again we witness Thaulow’s great talent when it comes to painting scenes which include stretches of water. The green tones used for the water when combined with shades of white in contrast to the black rocks allow us to imagine the ferocity of the water has it hurtles down the waterfall, carrying with it fallen logs.

Thaulow travelled to Venice on a number of occasions in the 1890’s and made many sketches and paintings of the city highlighting the city’s canals and architecture and completed many paintings of that city. In 1892, Thaulow returned once again to France but this time to make it his home. Originally, he lived in Paris but soon tired of the hustle and bustle and preferred a quieter life in the smaller towns of Dieppe, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Quimperle in Brittany and further south, the town of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.

Back Mills, Montreuil-sur-Mer by Frits Thaulow (1892)

Frits Thaulow had met Claude Monet when he was in Paris and a friendship between the two plein-air painters developed. Both Thaulow and Monet painted in Normandy with Monet preferring to base himself on the coast and depict the stormy sea and the windswept coastal landscapes whereas Thaulow preferred the tranquillity of painting on quiet rivers.

Thaulow’s weather tends to be calmer which in a way was more in keeping with his temperament. Thaulow said of himself:

“…I am more drawn to the gentle and harmonic than to the vigorous…”

Thaulow had urged Monet to paint in Norway, and the French artist finally acquiesced and travelled there in the winter of 1895, to visit his stepson, Jacques Hoschedé, who lived in Christiania. It proved a disastrous visit because of the severe winter climate with the temperature at minus twenty degrees Celsius when he arrived and because of the amount of snow falling, painting outdoors was a very difficult chore for Monet. One of the works completed during the visit was Sandvika. This small town just south-west of Oslo, looks as though it had been done in a blizzard.

It is interesting to note the colours used in the painting – cold blues and lavender whereas Thaulow often used gold and yellow in his winter scenes giving it a slightly warmer feeling. Maybe Monet just wanted to make sure we knew how cold and uncomfortable it was to paint winter scenes in such conditions whereas Thaulow was more forgiving.

The Akerselven River in the Snow by Frits Thaulow

Despite the adverse conditions, Monet painted twenty-nine Norwegian scenes during his two-month stay and these included at least six views of Sandvika. It is thought that the iron bridge we see in the foreground may have reminded Monet of the Japanese bridge at his home in Giverny. Monet never returned to Norway – he had had enough of the cold and inhospitable climate.

Evening in Camiers by Frits Thaulow (1893)

The Normandy coastal village of Camiers, which lies about ten miles south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was visited by Thaulow in 1893 and that year he completed a painting depicting the village, entitled Evening in Camiers in which we see the sun setting over the dunes and rose-tinted houses caught up in the evening sunlight.

Thaulow the Painter and his Children by Jacques-Emile Blanche (1895)

Through an 1895 painting by Jaques-Emile Blanche we get an insight into Thaulow’s family life. In the portrait, Thaulow the Painter and his Children, also known as The Thaulow Family, Frits Thaulow appeared with his daughter Else, aged 15 from his first marriage and two of the children from his second marriage, Harold then aged 8 and Ingrid aged 3. The third child from his second marriage, Christian, was only born that year and does not appear in the work. The painting is housed in the Musée d’Orsay. Blanche’s portrait was presented at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1896, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim, which prompted Blanche to say later that this work was the one that “made him a painter”.

The Adige River at Verona by Frits Thaulow

In the 1890’s Thaulow travelled to various European cities constantly sketching and painting what he observed. On his trip through northern Italy in 1894, he visited Verona on his way to Venice and completed a painting entitled The Adige River at Verona. In this work Thaulow used only muted colours and understated tonal harmonies which depict the view of the fast-flowing Adige River as it passes beneath the five arches of the sixteenth century Ponte della Pietra. In the background, we can see the Duomo of S. Maria Matricolare, and to the right the Sanmicheli’s campanile.

Small town near La Panne by Frits Thaulow (1905)

In the summer of 1905 Frits Thaulow spent some time with his family at La Panne, a small Flemish coastal resort. He had bought himself a small car and with this new-found transport was able to drive himself and his family to small Belgian towns in the area always looking for subjects for his paintings. One such painting was his 1905 work entitled Small Town Near La Panne. In the painting, we see small town houses nestled on the river bank and in the mid-ground a small arched bridge. Thaulow made three versions of this scene all slightly different in the way he depicted the bridge and the houses.

Evening at the Bay of Frogner by Frits Thaulow (1880)

Thaulow received several honours for his artistic work including his appointment as commander of the 2nd Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1905. He received the French Legion of Honour, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus from Italy and the Order of Nichan Iftikhar from Tunisia.

Johan Frederik “Frits” Thaulow
1847-1906

Thaulow developed diabetes in 1897, a time before insulin had been developed and his condition worsened over the next nine years Thaulow died in Volendam, in the Netherlands on November 5^th 1906, aged 59.

Thaulow was a painter working within the framework of Realism, to which he made an original contribution. He forged a friendship with Monet and Rodin and was a valuable connection between Norwegian and French art.

Frits Thaulow. Part 1 – the early days.

Portrait of Frits Thaulow by Christian Krohg

As a painter, I wonder whether you have a favourite motif. Is there one aspect of your landscape work, maybe the sky, maybe trees, etc., which you feel that you excel at? If so, do you try and incorporate that feature into many of your paintings? My artist today seems to be a virtuoso when it came to depictions of water and the reflections on the surface and so many of his paintings include stretches of water. Let me introduce you to the Norwegian Impressionist landscape painter Johan Frederik Thaulow, better known as “Frits” Thaulow.

An Orchard on the Banks of a River by Frits Thaulow

Johan Frederik Thaulow was born on October 20^th, 1847 in the Norwegian capital, Christiania (renamed Oslo in 1925). He was one of ten children. His father was Harald Conrad Thaulow, a wealthy pharmacist and his mother was Nicoline (“Nina”) Louise Munch. In order to satisfy his father’s wishes he carried on with his normal school and college studies and eventually attained a doctorate but his real love was for art and specifically maritime art and so, in 1870, aged twenty-three, he went to Copenhagen to try to become a marine painter.

Sailing Ships in the Strait South of Kronborg by Carl Frederik Sorensen (1857)

He enrolled on a two-year course at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen and one of his tutors was Carl Frederik Sørensen, the great Danish marine painter, whose paintings often depicted the relationship between weather and the effect it had on sea conditions.

In 1873, Thaulow left Copenhagen and travelled to Karlsruhe where, for two years, he attended the Baden School of Art. At the time one of the professors lecturing at the academy was the Norwegian Romanticist landscape and marine painter, Hans Fredrik Gude.

Gude had previously been a professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and through his popularity especially with his fellow countrymen, had built up a sizeable number of Norwegian students. When he left the Academy to take up a post at the Baden School of Art many followed him.

In October 1874, Thaulow married Ingeborg Charlotte Gad, whose sister Mette-Sophie Gad had married Paul Gaugin, and a year later the couple had a daughter, Nina, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1886. In September of that same year, Thaulow re-married. His second wife was Alexandra Lasson, the daughter of Carl Lasson, a noted Norwegian attorney. Alexandra was fifteen years younger than Thaulow. The couple went on to have three children, two sons and a daughter. Harald was born a year after the marriage, Ingrid born in 1892 and Christian who was born in 1895.

High Tide, Le Havre (1878) by Frits Thaulow

In 1875, Thaulow departed Karlsruhe and journeyed to Paris where he lived for most of the next four years. During his time in the French capital he concentrated on his marine and coastal paintings whilst also absorbing the exciting times of the French art scene. The year before his arrival, the Impressionists had held their first exhibition at the former Parisian studio of the photographer Nadar at 35 Boulevard des Capucines Another influence on Thaulow was the work of the French realist painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage. Thaulow believed in realism in art and considered that his fellow Norwegian artists should also consider this genre. Paris had always been popular with aspiring artists and had been fashionable among Norwegian artists. Thaulow became part of a group of Scandinavian landscape painters living in Paris, and worked with the Swedish painter Carl Skanberg, who was famous for his coastal, harbour paintings.

In the autumn of 1879 Thaulow left Paris and along with his friend and fellow artist Christian Krohg, a naturalist painter, illustrator, author, and journalist, and then the two arrived at Skagen from Norway in Thaulow’s little boat. Skagen was situated on the east coast of the Skagen Odde peninsula in the far north of Jutland. In the late 1870’s until the end of the nineteenth century, Denmark’s Skagen Art Colony became a magnet to numerous artists in the summer months who were drawn to the isolated fishing village and the quality of the light. The twilight of the early morning and evening was often referred to as the “blue hour” during which the sun is at a sizable depth below the horizon and this is a time when the remaining, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue shade.

The Skagen area also provided beautiful and unspoiled landscapes and seascapes. The artists were hailed as part of a modern breakthrough movement, which wanted to abandon the academic tradition of neoclassical painting styles which was taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and in its place these artists decided to follow the dictates of realism and naturalism which was part of the ethos of the Barbizon plein-air painters. They also became followers of the impressionist movements and by doing so, they could portray everyday life and everyday people in an un-idealized way. It was here that Thaulow’s depictions concentrated on the lives of the fishermen and the boats which had been dragged up onto the shore.

After his stay in Skagen, Thaulow returned to Norway in 1880. He became one of the leading young figures in the Norwegian art scene, together with Christian Krohg and Erik Werenskiold and with them organised the first National Art Exhibit in late 1882, known as the Høstutstillingen or Autumn Exhibition. This first Høstutstillingen was held in Oslo as a radical protest the established bourgeois dominance of the Christiania Art Society and these three organisers decided that they would not let, unlike the Christiania Art Society, an artist jury to decide what could be included in the exhibition.

Thaulow spent the next twelve years in Norway. It was a period during which Realist painting based on the French model was accepted in Norway. And Thaulow’s personal interpretation of the Norwegian landscape was generally believed to be new. Although based in Norway he made several trips abroad visiting Scotland and Venice and returning to Paris

View of Overgaden, Christianshavn by Frits Thaulow (1881)

One of my favourite works by Thaulow is one he completed in 1881 entitled View of Overgaden, Christianshavn. Christianshaven is a district of Copenhagen and the Christianhaven Canal bisects the neighbourhood. Christianshavns Kanal is now noted for its bustling sailing community with numerous houseboats and sailboats, particularly in the northern half of the canal. Overgaden oven Vandet and Overgaden neden Vandet are the two streets running along each side of the waterway. Beside Thaulow’s masterful depiction of the water, look at the detailed portrayal of the buildings and cobbled walkways.

………………………………………….. to be continued.