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Storm Clouds
Karl Nordström1893
Nationalmuseum Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
The barren, windy landscape is from Tjörn. Nordström was born there, but this was painted in Varberg, where the artist moved in May 1893. Here, Nordström, Nils Kreuger and Richard Bergh, developed a “synthetist” style of landscape painting, with billowing lines and a subdued palette. The critics said Nordström’s art was morose and introverted: “In Storm Clouds the darkening landscape is ominous with its bleak and raving fury,” Edvard Alkman wrote in Dagens Nyheter in 1894.
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Details
- Title: Storm Clouds
- Creator: Karl Nordström
- Creator Lifespan: 1855/1923
- Creator Nationality: Swedish
- Creator Gender: Male
- Date Created: 1893
- Title in Swedish: Ovädersmoln
- Signature: KN 93
- Physical Dimensions: w800 x h720 cm (without frame)
- Artist Information: Karl Nordström began his studies in 1875 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, where he met Rickard Bergh and Nils Kreuger, who became his faithful companions. In 1880, Nordström went to France, where he joined the Scandinavian artists colony in Paris and Gréz-sur-Loing. He devoted himself to plein-air painting and made his debut at the Salon in Paris in 1882. The same year, together with Christian Krohg, he saw the Impressionists’ seventh exhibition and was highly impressed by their work. In 1886, Nordström returned to Sweden, where he became one of the true reformers of Swedish landscape painting, with magnificent depictions of the rugged, desolate landscape of Bohuslän Province, its naked rocks and mighty sea. Between 1893 and 1895, Nordström worked together with Bergh and Krueger in the little west-coast town of Varberg, and formed what is known as the “Varberg-school”. During this time, Nordström worked with a Synthetist idiom influenced by Gauguin and van Gogh. After 1908, Nordström’s painting underwent a process of profound rejuvenation, inspired by Expressionism’s intense treatment of colour. Nordström took an active role in art policy. From 1896, he was the dynamic chairman of the influential Artists’ Union, which regularly organized its own exhibitions.
- Type: Painting
- Rights: Nationalmuseum, Nationalmuseum
- Medium: Oil on canvas
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