Monday, October 25, 2010

Skagenmalerne (The painters at Skagen, Denmark)

Peder S. Krøyer, "Sommeraften på Skagen Sønderstrand" 1893, Skagens Museum.

I had a small reproduction of this painting in my room when I was a school girl still living at my parents' house. - At an age when intimate friendship was so important and stylish clothes were a big part of my dreams about the future.


I thought of it as old fashioned, and did not realize how modern it was considered less than a hundred years earlier, when painters had just started to paint outdoors, rendering clean, clear colors in natural light.


Do you see how the soft evening sunlight makes the dresses and the women's necks shine, so quietly?
The beach continues far into the painting, to where the sky and the sea meet. And the ocean is almost completely still, waiting.

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