14 Significant Paintings at Nationalmuseum in Sweden

In The Water Sprite, also known as Näcken, Ernst Josephson combined Nordic folklore with Renaissance painting and the French Symbolism of the late 19th century. In ancient Nordic tales, Näcken was a destructive spirit who wandered through wild wetlands, playing music on his fiddle, and, sirenlike, lured people to their deaths. The sprite therefore symbolizes the hidden dangers in nature, but Näcken’s story also functioned as a personal allegory for Josephson’s own sense of isolation. The artist’s skillful and sensual use of color is evident in this painting: the bright, wet green of the sprite’s long hair and the reeds in which he kneels are balanced by patches of a complementary red, such as on the violin, rocks, and the spirit’s lips. The loose, multidirectional brushstrokes bring to life the turbulent, rushing water, creating a melancholy yet angry and energetic mood. (Karen Morden)

This oil painting by Swedish artist Anders Zorn is a highly atmospheric piece depicting two girls bathing in a tub, the scene lit by the flickering glow of a fire. Zorn was greatly concerned with the effects of light, and especially of light reflecting on water and flesh, and many of his paintings convey a striking clarity of light and atmosphere, and have a photographic quality. Girls from Dalarna is an unusual composition and somewhat reminiscent of Edgar Degas, whom Zorn had become acquainted with while in Paris. He also socialized with Pierre-Auguste Renoir and particularly Auguste Rodin, and there is a sense of each of these within Zorn’s work. By the time he painted Girls from Dalarna, the artist had moved from Paris back to his hometown of Mora, where he stayed until his death. He contributed to the development of the town, and he chose the local people and scenery for many of his paintings. (Tamsin Pickeral)

The Italian Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born in Milan to a family of painters. By 1549 the young artist had been commissioned, along with his father, to design stained-glass windows for Milan Cathedral. He also designed a series of tapestries for Como Cathedral. This early foundation in design formed the basis of the artist’s subsequent astonishingly innovative style that was conceived in a thoroughly precise and linear manner. In 1562 Arcimboldo was employed by Emperor Ferdinand I, and he left Milan for Vienna, and later Prague, to fill his position of painter to the Hapsburg court. On Ferdinand’s death in 1564, he was taken on by his successor, Maximilian II, and later by Rudolph II, for whom he worked until 1587. It was during the first years of his courtly service that the artist’s style emerged, seen in an early version of his Four Seasons series. By the time The Jurist was painted in 1566, Arcimboldo had established himself as one of the leading innovative painters of his time. He treated his subjects with an ironic wit that was greatly appreciated. The artist’s feelings about his jurist are clear—the countenance is composed of plucked chicken carcasses and dead fish, and his mouth is pulled down in a sneer. These clever and humorous compositions, and Arcimboldo’s particular ability to create recognizable personas from composite elements, was unsurpassed. Arcimboldo’s work is considered a precursor to Surrealism, and the visual pun is a device used in advertising today. (Tamsin Pickeral)

The German painter David Klöcker was given the honorary title Ehrenstrahl in respect of his ennoblement by the Swedish royal court in 1674; he took it as his surname. It was a mark of the respect that the artist had won in Sweden, which was further heightened in 1690 when he was made a court steward. He initially studied in the Netherlands, but by 1652 he had already traveled to Sweden, where he painted the equestrian portrait of Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel. He followed this trip with a stay in Italy and France. It was there that Ehrenstrahl truly developed his style, being influenced by the drama of Baroque art, and later combined this with his own startling realism. Young Man with Parrots and Monkeys is an excellent example of this. It shows the artist’s skill at painting animals and his use of dramatic effect. The painting is an exotic work, in subject and in execution. The dark yet rich palette is enlivened by the brilliant white-yellow of the parrot that appears to fly into the viewer’s space. Compositionally, the painting is cleverly contrived with the forms based around a pyramidal structure picked out through the sharply contrasted lights and darks, with the parrot forming the peak, the young man’s sleeve and birdstand the sides, and the horizontal ledge the base. Ehrenstrahl worked primarily as a portrait painter, but he also produced lively allegorical paintings and was one of the first artists working in Sweden to paint genre scenes. His distinctive style and fluent depiction of landscape, nature, and people made him a leading figure in 17th-century Swedish art. (Tamsin Pickeral)

This painting dates from the last years that Johan Christian Dahl spent in his native Norway. He left to travel in Italy and improve his artistic education before moving finally to Germany, where he would live for the rest of his life. In 1823 he was offered the opportunity to teach art at the Dresden Academy. Despite having relocated to Germany, Dahl loved his native country and made regular trips back to Norway, delighting in the inspiration its scenery gave him. Dahl specialized in landscapes, and this dramatic painting is an exciting example of his work. It manages to combine realism and fantasy and was championed by the philosopher, author, and painter Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The rocks undulate invitingly and at first sight appear to be mossy, gentle, and welcoming—one is tempted to reach out and touch them—yet they are also commanding and ominously threatening. Dahl takes what could be a simple scene and fills it with dramatic intent and rich light effects. The low clouds threaten in the distance to the right, amassing to potentially mar the scene and block the light. Small details enhance the majesty of the scene, such as the lowly tree haloed by the sunlight and the speckled, sun-daubed stones. Toward the end of his life, Dahl helped to found an art gallery in his former city of Christiana (now the city of Oslo). In his will, he bequeathed his art collection to the gallery. (Lucinda Hawksley)

Carl Fredrik Hill’s father was a professor of mathematics at Lund University in Sweden—he was deeply opposed to the idea of his son being an artist. Despite this setback, Hill moved to Stockholm, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, and then moved to Paris. In France, he was inspired by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, and other landscape artists. While in Paris, Hill’s works, which had once been somber, began to exhibit more defined color and to demonstrate a much-improved understanding of tone, as can be seen here in Apple Tree in Blossom. Hill benefited from the tutelage of fellow artists such as Corot, and his works took on a Realist style. Hill’s works were continually rejected from academic circles; only one was shown at the Paris Salon and another in the Exposition Universelle of 1878. This constant rejection led to depression, and Hill struggled with mental illness, exacerbated by the deaths of his sister and father in Sweden. In the late 1870s, his mental illness became more marked, and he began painting in bold, harshly vibrant colors, clashing hues, and mixing strange styles. Hill was eventually admitted to an asylum, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated for persecution mania. His doctor claimed that the bizarre paintings resulted from a series of hallucinations. Hill returned to his hometown of Lund for the latter years of his life, spending part of it in an asylum. His family cared for him until his death in 1911. (Lucinda Hawksley)

[How much do you know about the art and architecture of Sweden? Take this quiz to find out.]

Coming from an aristocratic family, Gustaf Cederström, like many Swedish artists of his era, began his career as an army officer. After receiving artistic training in Düsseldorf under another Swede, Ferdinand Fagerlin, he moved to Paris—one of the first of his generation to do so. Although slightly older than the artists who introduced French Realism to Swedish painting in the 1880s, Cederström chose to specialize in history painting. His favorite subject was the Swedish king Karl XII and his illustrious military campaigns. This was also the theme of his initial great success—the first 1878 version of Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII, which won him an award at the Exposition Universelle in Paris that same year. The 1884 version, however, is impressive in the way that it successfully infuses a distant historical subject with immediacy, realism, and an evocative atmosphere. Cederström studied reality closely and developed a keen understanding of the workings of plein air compositions. This canvas was partly painted outdoors, and the scene was set up with real models dressed in replicas of authentic early 18th-century uniforms. Even though Cederström made a notable contribution to 19th-century historic painting, he was not the most representative of this genre in Sweden. The Nationalmuseum, however, acquired this work at the end of the 19th century because it represents a veritable cornerstone in the glorification of Sweden’s historical past and in the power of art to create national symbols. (Anna Amari-Parker)

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Bruno Liljefors was famous for his depictions of hunting life. Influenced by the evolutionist Charles Darwin, Liljefors became fascinated by anatomy and sought to paint realistic portrayals of his subjects. A frail child, Liljefors spent much of his childhood entertaining himself by drawing. As a teenager he was taken hunting, and he developed a lifelong passion for the sport; he later attributed this to his increased physical strength and improved health. After studying art at the Royal Academy in Stockholm, Liljefors moved to Germany, where he studied with the artist Carl Friedrich Deiker and began specializing in animal painting. He lived and worked in several European countries, and he studied the art of the Impressionists and their depiction of light and color, which was so different from the darkness and somberness of German Realism. Liljefors eventually returned to Uppsala, where he struggled to survive as an artist for many years. In 1901 he received financial aid from a patron, however. Liljefors’s 1906 exhibition established him as a reputable artist, particularly of wildlife subjects. Man Warping shows the influence of Impressionism on Liljefors’s work. A soft, almost dreamy painting in pastel tones, Man Warping depicts a group of men gathered on a beach on a spring or summer’s day. While some of the men are involved in a game, others crouch on the white sand or stand by silently watching. The scene is tranquil, relaxed, and peaceful; birds soar in the pinkish-blue sky and the sea gently laps at the sand. (Aruna Vasudevan)

Fritz Syberg, together with Peter Hansen and Johannes Larsen, created an association of artists in Copenhagen known as the Funen painters, who actively defined Danish Impressionism. In the late 1800s, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism experienced a delayed but forceful entry into Danish and Scandinavian art, as museums and collectors invested in French artists such as Paul Gauguin, also an influential friend to the Funen group. The Nordic artists adopted the emotional elements of Impressionism, molding an entirely new style of Nordic painting that adapted the Impressionist palette and pointilliste techniques to their own countryside and character. Meeting an Evening on a Road portrays a courting couple exchanging a few words by the roadside after a day’s work. Standing apart from the crowd, they hold their arms defensively yet express an empathic similitude. The tilt of the gentleman’s hat is bold in line and color, rivaling only the arching road behind them for visual dominance, while the woman stands expectant but reserved. The road suggests the path of marriage, while the clouds signify the turmoil and moodiness of love. The small path at left is both the man’s escape and his access—both his path home and the way he will return again for a similar exchange. After the death of his first wife, Syberg married the sister of his fellow painter Peter Hansen. Meeting an Evening on a Road perhaps suggests Syberg’s own courtship, one that would have taken place apart from the community but also witnessed by it. (Sara White Wilson)

The artist Karl Nordström played a significant role in the development of Swedish landscape painting at the end of the 19th century, and through his active protests he helped to break the rigidly conservative attitudes of Konstakademin in Stockholm. He studied at the academy he would later attack and, while there, met like-minded artists Richard Bergh and Nils Kreuger, who became allies in their quest to find a new expression for their art. In 1882 Nordström visited Paris where he saw, and was greatly influenced by, the work of the Impressionists. By the time he painted Storm Clouds in 1893 he had also become interested in the works of Japanese artists, and the simple, bold composition here owes much to the Japanese woodblock prints that had become so popular at this time. There is an echo of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin present in this evocative painting that captures the dramatic scenery of Sweden’s landscape, particularly evident in his treatment of the swirling sky. It is romantic in feel but expressed with a modern hand, and it defines Sweden’s scenery with a heroic and nationalist sense of pride. The same year he painted this work, Nordström moved to Varberg on the Swedish coast and established an artists’ colony with his friends Bergh and Kreuger. Nordström was a strident voice for the arts during his life and a key contributor toward a new direction in Sweden’s landscape painting in the 20th century. (Tamsin Pickeral)

This low-key scene by Laurits Andersen Ring captures the feeling of a leisurely breakfast spent in a room flooded with morning light. It also reflects a major preoccupation of artists around the turn of the 20th century—the balance between depicting something in a naturalistic way and conveying a deeper truth. At Breakfast shows Ring’s Symbolist credentials by using mood and unusual compositional devices to dig beneath the surface of everyday life. It is a convincing portrayal of a woman at breakfast, but it is painted in a way that fills it with moody immediacy, giving it a more powerful kind of realism. The main subject has her back to us, but this emphasizes the fact that she is in a casual, everyday pose, leaning in to read her paper. The table on which she leans is cut off abruptly on the left and forms a strong foreground object, reminiscent of the Japanese prints that influenced so many artists at this time. (Ann Kay)

Vilhelm Hammershøi, like his better-known contemporary Edvard Munch, had a similar interest in depicting lonely figures in silent interiors. A well-traveled Danish artist, Hammershøi was a great admirer of James McNeill Whistler and echoed his use of subtle, muted colors. Today Hammershøi is remembered almost exclusively for the hidden drama of his interiors. These interiors exude an air of calm and still. They may be empty, but more often they contain a single, female figure, usually seen from behind, as in Interior. These female figures are enigmatic: their faces are hidden, as is their precise activity. Often the head is bowed slightly, to indicate that the woman is doing something, although this is concealed from the viewer. Hammershøi’s chief concern in these scenes was to capture the play of light and create a mysterious atmosphere. (Iain Zaczek)

The Swedish playwright, poet, and novelist August Strindberg also had an interest in photography and painting. In his autobiographical novel, Son of a Servant, he says how painting made him “indescribably happy—as if he’d just taken hashish.” Strindberg suffered from mental illness, and his psychotic episodes and introspective personality are revealed in his paintings of stormy landscapes and seascapes. In The City his native Stockholm appears a tiny but luminous, welcoming light on the horizon, trapped between a violent, dark sea and sky. It has been said that such paintings of violent weather were a representation of the churning emotions that often gripped Strindberg. The motif of a turbulent sea storm and a distant horizon is one he used again and again. Without explanation, Strindberg stopped painting in 1905, seven years before he died. (Terry Sanderson)

This undulating and calm summer landscape was painted in 1905 by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, at a time when Hammershøi was a widely recognized artist. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen and later at Kunstnernes Studieskole (The Artists’ Study School), where he was introduced to the plein-air technique. He received acclamation from contemporaries such as the French artist Pierre-August Renoir and the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Landscape from Lejre provides us with a view over the countryside near Roskilde, southwest of Copenhagen. The countryside makes up one-third of the painting; the sky, with its fluffy clouds, occupies the remainder. Hammershøi has repeated the softness of the clouds in the fields, which are equally faint and gentle. The lack of detail and clear focus is evident throughout this landscape, and we are left with an even, almost metaphysical sphere, in which soft tones of shade and light dominate. The yellow field, on the right, is the only real complementary color. Such stillness speaks of aesthetic scrutiny, a visual characteristic that is evident in the artist’s other paintings, especially his interiors. Hammershøi traveled throughout Europe—Holland and England were favorite places—and James McNeill Whistler was an inspiration to him. Landscape from Lejre opens up a pictorial world that invites us to reflect on an environment that serves to instigate yet more thought and contemplation. (Signe Mellergaard Larsen)