The grocers booth, Christiansø

Edvard Weie found motifs in Christiansø’s rocky and fortification landscapes that were in keeping with his enthusiasm for the French artist Cézanne’s innovative approaches to art. The first time Weie came to the island was in 1911 and his paintings from then until 1920 are among his best known. Apparently they are the result of an encounter with a milieu that was profoundly inspiring to him. In a letter to a woman friend in 1913, Weie wrote, “Today I am surrounded by the glow of exotic scenery and sonorous colours, where the Baltic Sea exudes a decorative Mediterranean blue and the rocks absorb the light until they resemble a gigantic collection of Asian fruits of brightest yellow and mellow orange…” Although Weie wished to renew modern art, he never let go of nature in his paintings. Fixed motifs were repeated and worked out in many variations, including the motifs from Christiansø.