Sunday 12 October 2008

Danish Venus: Female Model 1909 by Vilhelm Hammershøi



We saw this painting by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) last year in the Danish National Gallery in Copenhagen. Although he painted portraits and landscapes it is for his rather minimalist, Dutch-inspired, interiors that Hammershøi is best known. The painter was born and lived in Copenhagen where he started his studies at the age of eight and by his mid-teens he was already studying at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.




He used a very muted, almost monchrome palette and many of his cool interiors feature his wife, Ada.


Female model: studies



Hammershøi in his studio




We like the rather bleak, lonely, stillness of Hammershøi's painting and think it sums up the bleaker aspects of Baltic painting of a century ago.

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