Night Effect

Night Effect

1895

Oil on canvas

Mått 161,00 x 106,00 cm Ram 196,50 x 143,00 x 7,50 cm

F 161

Bequest of Pontus and Göthilda Fürstenberg, 1902

From the book “The Collection: The Gothenburg Museum of Art”, Gothenburg 2014: The painting presents us with a woman, extravagantly dressed in a bright red dress and grey fur cape, with a fur muff and a red plumed eye-catcher. She has a hand out to steady herself against a tree as she stretches out one shiny black-shod foot and turns her head. Her bleary gaze meets ours. To the left of the woman is a café, brightly lit by electric light. In the top right-hand corner, the perspective opens into the night: points of light float in the darkness, and we can just make out a figure. The warm light from the café meets the weaker, colder light of the gas street lighting outside the image, resulting in a peculiar play of light and shade on the ground. The mix of warm and cold light also plays on the woman’s made-up face. The woman appears to have got dressed up for the occasion, but seems uncomfortable in her dramatic outfit. She seems to be swaying drunkenly. Perhaps she has just caught sight of the viewer, another night wanderer in the big city, and is making him an invitation. Her clothing indicates that she is a prostitute. The painting is seemingly fluid and spontaneous, carried out with quick, bold brushstrokes. Study it more closely and we find evidence of reworking, which suggests that the artist worked on it for a long time, and that the lightness of touch was a style that Zorn had had to perfect. Night Effect was painted at a time when many Swedish artists were preoccupied with the Nordic twilight. Zorn instead sought out the bright city lights that illuminated la vie moderne, with its late-night bars, cafés, and theatres. Zorn had moved into a studio on the boulevard de Clichy, one of the Parisian entertainment districts, and he regularly headed out into the night armed with a sketchbook. There were prostitutes aplenty. The scene in question was set in the Place Pigalle. One or more meetings with such ladies of the night may have provided him with his inspiration. Electric light was a novelty that had only recently begun to be installed in cafés, and it made a strong impression on Zorn. Unlike many of Zorn’s pictures of women, he has not attempted to give this one an erotic edge. Perhaps instead there is a social pathos to the depiction of a woman forced to sell her body. Night Effect shows the exploitation of women in modern society. Yet it is not a campaigning image of the kind created by Christian Krohg. Zorn was more ambivalent, and described his own interest in the subject only in terms of an interesting »lighting problem«. Kristoffer Arvidsson

Stockholm, 18/02/2021 - 28/08/2021 Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 28/02/2013 - 13/05/2013, no. 6a Stockholm, Judiska museet, 29/10/2007 - 16/03/2008 Göteborg, Göteborgs konstmuseum, 26/12/1994 - 26/03/1995, no. 67 Stockholm, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, 15/09/1994 - 11/12/1994, no. 67 Mora, Zornsamlingarna, 18/02/1960 - 15/08/1960, no. 97 Berlin, 1896

Sixten Strömbom, Konstnärsförbundets historia 2. Nationalromantik och radikalism: 1891–1920, Albert Bonniers förlag, Stockholm 1965., p. 180, 183-184 Birgit Rausing, "Måleriet", Signums svenska konsthistoria. Konsten 1890–1915, Bokförlaget Signum, Lund 2001, p. 230, ill. p. 230 Anders Zorn. 60 reproduktioner i tontryck efter fotografier af originalen, Gleerupska Universitets-bokhandeln, Lund 1910, ill. p. 29 Georg Pauli, "Fürstenbergska galleriet. Spridda drag ur dess historia", Ord & Bild, 1902, ill. p. 353 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. 361 Stockholm, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Konstverkens födelse. Svenska 1800-talsskisser, 1971., p. opag Teddy Brunius och Oscar Reutersvärd, Samtal om Zorn, Bokförlaget Bra Böcker, Höganäs 1979, p. nr 66, ill. p. nr 66 Henri Usselmann, Complexité et importance des contacts des peintres nordiques avec l'impressionnisme, diss. Göteborgs universitet, Göteborgs universitet, Göteborg 1979, p. 147 Lars-Göran Oredsson, ”Natteffekt”, Zorn. Mästerverk, red. Johan Cederlund, Arena, Malmö 2010, p. 124 Cecilia Lengefeld, Zorn. Resor, konst och kommers i Tyskland, Stockholm, Carlssons 2000, p. 126, ill. p. 125, färgplansch XIII Tor Hedberg, Anders Zorn. En studie, Aktiebolaget Ljus, Stockholm 1901, ill. p. 32 Tor Hedberg, Anders Zorn, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm 1924, p. 18-21, ill. p. 19 Mora, Zornsamlingarna, Zornmuseet, Folklivsskildraren Anders Zorn/Anders Zorn. Portrayer of Life and Manners/Anders Zorn. Szenen aus dem Volksleben/Anders Zorn. Peintre de la vie populaire, 1992., ill. p. 85 Anders Zorn, Självbiografiska anteckningar, red. Hans Henrik Brummer, Bonniers, Stockholm 1982, p. 89 Hans Henrik Brummer, Anders Zorn. Till ögats fröjd och nationens förgyllning, Nordstedts, Stockholm 1994., p. 186-188 Mora, Zornmuseet, Zorn. Mästerverk, red. Johan Cederlund, Arena, Malmö 2010, p. 124, ill. p. 125 Erik Forssman, Nils Gösta Sadblad, Alfred Westholm, Anders Zorn 1860–1960. Minnesutställning, Zornsamlingarna Mora, Mora 1960., no. 97, p. 34 Axel L. Romdahl, Göteborgs konstmuseum. Tvåhundra bilder med inledande text av Axel L. Romdahl, Medéns bokhandels aktiebolag, Göteborg 1925., ill. p. 135 Hans Henrik Brummer, Anne-Marie Eze, Michelle Facos et al., Anders Zorn. A European Artist Seduces America, red. Oliver Tostmann, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum och Paul Holberton publishing, Boston och London 2013., no. 6a, p. 100-105, ill. p. 21 fig. 8, 100 Johan Cederlund, Hans Henrik Brummer, Per Hedström et al., Anders Zorn. Sweden’s Master Painter, Fina Arts Museums of San Franciscon, Skira Rizzoli, San Francisco, New York 2013., p. 71-74, ill. p. 73 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. 160-163, ill. p. 161 Vibeke Röstorp, Zorn och Frankrike, Zornmuseet, Mora 2017., p. 81-83, 112, ill. p. 85 Zorn. En svensk superstjärna, red., Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2021., no. 149, p. 32,166, ill. p. 174 Axel L. Romdahl, "Göteborgs Konstmuseum", Konstrevy, specialnummer om Göteborg, årg. XV, red., 1939., p. 10