Nordic Painting The Rise of Modernity

This large-format, lavishly illustrated book offers a comprehensive survey of the fin-desiècle and modernist painting of Scandinavia. This book features an enormous variety of artists and works that explore the impact of Nordic geography, history, social mores, and national identities on the region’s painters. Focusing on the "core" countries—Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland—as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and the Danish-German border region, the authors present a thematically organized overview of Nordic art between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawing from the most recent scholarship, the book considers the prevalent themes and subjects, such as landscapes, genre scenes, portraits, interiors, modern city life, and abstraction, and analyzes various works by artists such as Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Helene Schjerfbeck, Jóhannes S. Kjarval, and Sigrid Hjertén. It looks at the rise of modernism in Nordic art and discusses the artistic interaction between North and Central Europe. A final chapter is devoted to the significance of Nordic painting today. Comprehensive and authoritative, this beautifully illustrated book is certain to become the standard volume on Nordic art.

Katharina Alsen is an art historian. She was a doctoral scholar at the "InterArt"-program at Freie Universität Berlin and a visiting research fellow at
the University of Copenhagen.