KRØYER, Peter Severin

Around 1870, growing numbers of Scandinavian (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish) artists took to visiting Paris, the modern metropolis with its many-sided art scene. They attended the school of L�on Bonnat, or the Acad�mie Julian, or the Acad�mie Colarossi. Some of them were tutored by Jean-L�on G�r�me. When summer arrived and tuition ceased at the private schools in Paris, the artists deserted the city. The coast of Brittany was especially popular for painting holidays. In the 1880s, there was a Swedish artists’ colony at Gr�z-sur-Loing, by the Fontainebleau woods.

In due course the artists took the idea of the artists’ colony back to Scandinavia with them. The most famous of the northern colonies was at Skagen in Denmark. Many Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish artists returned there every summer, to paint in the fine northern light in the company of friends old and new.

There is a direct continuity from plein-airisme of the true outdoor kind to interiors that record the immediate effects of sunlight. The Skagen painters were particularly fond of this effect. Krøyer’s Artists at Breakfast was a logical developments of motifs he had worked on previously in France. The painting portrays Danish, Norwegian and Swedish artists at table. The objects on the table stand out in the strong sunlight in red and green against the white cloth. The light effectively glows in Krohg’s bushy gingery beard and catches the sleeve of Charles Lundh’s jacket. The loose brushwork and inexact outlines highlight the sense that a lively and significant moment has been captured.

Light broken on waves, a swell, or the surface of water, together with reflections on the sky, plus local colour, naturally constituted a favourite Impressionist subject. In 1892, Krøyer painted a handful of modestly sized canvases of Danish beaches, paying tribute to the pleasures people took in the summer. In Bathing Children he gave his attention to light on the sea, capturing a fleeting moment as a boy runs into the water, splashing showers of spray.

Among all the Skagen painters, Krøyer was the most brilliant and also the most celebrated in his own day. He would make any composition work as perfectly as could be using only a few simple devices. Here he creates a diagonal movement from the boys in the foreground to the ships by the horizon. The ships - and our gaze - moves to the right, meeting the white moonbeam that takes us back to the boy and the beach of Skagen.

Around 1870, growing numbers of Scandinavian (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish) artists took to visiting Paris, the modern metropolis with its many-sided art scene. They attended the school of L�on Bonnat, or the Acad�mie Julian, or the Acad�mie Colarossi. Some of them were tutored by Jean-L�on G�r�me. When summer arrived and tuition ceased at the private schools in Paris, the artists deserted the city. The coast of Brittany was especially popular for painting holidays. In the 1880s, there was a Swedish artists’ colony at Gr�z-sur-Loing, by the Fontainebleau woods.

In due course the artists took the idea of the artists’ colony back to Scandinavia with them. The most famous of the northern colonies was at Skagen in Denmark. Many Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish artists returned there every summer, to paint in the fine northern light in the company of friends old and new.

The composition of this painting was based on a photograph taken in summer 1884. The party was in the garden of the Anchers (husband and wife were both artist) at Skagen. We see the artists raising their champagne glasses in a toast. The motif of movement captured in the male group is nicely complemented by the tranquillity of the seated women and the child.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Carl August Nielsen: Maskarade, overture