Garden in Grez

Garden in Grez

1884

Oil on canvas

Mått 108,50 x 73,50 cm Ram 146,50 x 112,00 x 10,50 cm

F 110

Bequest of Pontus and Göthilda Fürstenberg, 1902

From the book “The Collection: The Gothenburg Museum of Art”, Gothenburg 2014: Karl Nordström was the Swedish plein-air painter who went furthest in adopting Impressionism, with heightened colours and fluid brushwork. In March 1882, he visited the Impressionist exhibition in Paris, and was deeply struck by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Christian Krohg was another source of inspiration. One of the most Impressionist of his paintings from his years in France was Garden in Grez, a view of the kitchen garden from a window in the Pension Laurent in Grez, where Nordström was staying. Grez-sur-Loing is a village not far south of Paris, where at this time there was an international artists’ colony that was particularly popular with Swedish artists. Nordström’s garden is bathed in strong sunlight, which casts blue shadows. The pastose painting with broad, short brushstrokes contributes to the impression of flickering light. Plants climb up a white wall, seen dramatically foreshortened on the left of the picture. The garden plot is divided by a path leading from the right corner towards the middle, and ending in a gate onto the river. On the garden path stands a man in shorts and a straw hat, a watering can in his hand. Further into the picture we glimpse a woman. The motif is mundane, without literary quality. In order to create as believable an impression as possible, Nordström has departed from a number of painterly conventions of composition and lighting. The picture has a vertical format, unlike traditional landscape painting. The painting is characterized by small shifts in tone, without half-tones. Like an Impressionist like Monet, Nordström creates contrasts by boosting the colours and setting cool against warm. Leaving behind the nineteenth century’s narrative paintings, we have left the studio, with its props, for a prosaic reality that bombards our senses with impressions. Kristoffer Arvidsson

Stockholm, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, 15/02/2014 - 25/05/2014, no. 5 Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 25/10/1985 - 06/01/1986, no. 85 Göteborg, Göteborgs konstmuseum, 07/05/1983 - 03/07/1983, no. 71 Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 06/02/1983 - 10/04/1983, no. 71 New York, The Brooklyn Museum, 10/11/1982 - 06/01/1983, no. 71 Washington D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, 08/09/1982 - 17/10/1982, no. 71 Stockholm, Blanchs salong, 1885, no. 71 Stockholm, Liljevalchs konsthall, 1955, no. 20

Bo Lindwall, "Nordiskt friluftsmåleri", Bildkonsten i Norden, del 3, Bokförlaget Prisma, Stockholm (1950) 1972., p. 93, ill. p. 93 Georg Pauli, "Fürstenbergska galleriet. Spridda drag ur dess historia", Ord & Bild, 1902, p. 343 Georg Nordensvan, "I Göteborgs Museum. Några intryck af Georg Nordensvan", Ord & Bild, red. Karl Whålin, Ord & Bild/Wahlström & Widstrand, 1906, p. 27 Georg Nordensvan, Svensk konst och svenska konstnärer i nittonde århundradet. II. Från Karl XV till sekelslutet, Ny, grundligt omarbetad upplaga, Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm (1925) 1928, p. 291, 311 Nordiskt ljus. Realism och symbolism i skandinaviskt måleri 1880–1910 (Northern Light. Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting 1880–1910), Göteborg, 1983, no. 71, p. 52 Sixten Strömbom, Konstnärsförbundets historia till och med 1890, Albert Bonniers förlag, Stockholm 1945, p. 184-185, 202, ill. p. bild 71 Impressionismen och Norden. Franskt avantgarde i det sena 1800-talet och konsten i Norden 1870-1920, utg. av Torsten Gunnarsson och Per Hedström, Stockholm, 2002, p. 58-60, ill. p. 59 Paris, Musée du petit palais, Lumières du Nord. La peinture scandinave 1885–1905, 1987., ill. p. 28 Kirk Varnedoe m fl, Northern Light. Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting 1880–1910, The Brooklyn Museum, 1982., no. 71, p. 201, ill. p. 201 Michelle Facos, Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination. Swedish Art of the 1890s, University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles, London 1998, p. 19-20, ill. p. fig. 6, 19 Viggo Loos, Friluftsmåleriets genombrott i svensk konst 1860–1885, Sveriges allmänna konstförening, Stockholm 1945., p. 232, 265, 305 Hans Henrik Brummer, Eugen. Ein Prinz malt Schweden, Ernst Barlach Haus - Stiftung Hermann F. Reemtsma/Kerber Verlag, 2006., ill. p. 29 Georg Pauli, Opponenterna, Albert Bonniers förlag, Stockholm 1927, p. 95 Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 1880-tal i nordiskt måleri, red. Pontus Grate och Nils-Göran Hökby, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm 1985., no. 85, p. 208-210, ill. p. 209 Richard Bergh, Om konst och annat, Bonniers, Stockholm (1908) 1919, p. 122 Tortsen Gunnarsson, Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press, New Haven och London 1998, p. 170-172, ill. p. 167 Axel L. Romdahl, Göteborgs konstmuseum. Tvåhundra bilder med inledande text av Axel L. Romdahl, Medéns bokhandels aktiebolag, Göteborg 1925., ill. p. 171 Axel L. Romdahl, Konstmonologer i Göteborgs Museum, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm (1911) 1921, p. 4 Torsten Gunnarsson, "Grez-sur-Loing och Konstnärskolonierna kring Fontainebleauskogen", Konsthistorisk tidskrift volym 84, häfte 1, 2015., p. 36-37, ill. p. 35 Alexandra Herlitz, Grez-sur-Loing Revisited: The International Artists' Colony in a Different Light, diss. Göteborgs universitet 2013, Makadam, Göteborg och Stockholm 2013., p. 292-295, ill. p. 293 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 134, 157, ill. p. 156 Karl Nordström. Konstnärernas konstnär, red. Anna Meister och Karin Sidén, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde/Carlsson, Stockholm 2014., no. 5, p. 23, 70, ill. p. 71 Claire Leray, Maria Le Vot, Pr Kenneth McConkey et al., Artistes du Bout du Monde à Grez sur Loing depuis 1860, red. Claire Leray och Maria Le Vot, Artistes du Bout du Monde, Grez sur Loing 2016., p. 94, ill. p. 94 Isaac Grünewald, "Opponenterna av 1885", Paletten nr 2 1945, Göteborg 1945., p. opag., ill. p. opag. Tone Sinding Steinsvik et al., Drømmen om en hage - Nordiske hagemotiver, Stiftelsen Modums Blaafarvevaerk, Vikersund, 2017., p. 76, ill. p. 76 Karin Sidénoch Alexandra Herlitzoch Elizabeth Doe Stone, Grez-sur-Loing. Konst och relationer, red. Anna Meister, Carina Rech och Karin Sidén, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, 2019., no. 86, p. 148, 255, ill. p. 148 Axel L. Romdahl, "Göteborgs Konstmuseum", Konstrevy, specialnummer om Göteborg, årg. XV, red., 1939., ill. p. 8