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Summer evening on Skagen beach. The artist and his wife
Peder Severin Krøyer • Painting, 1899, 135×187 cm
Description of the artwork «Summer evening on Skagen beach. The artist and his wife»
The artist and his wife Marie are walking with the dog along the coast at that very hour before sunset, which Peder Severin Krøyer called the “blue hour”: the time when the sun has just set, and the moon has already risen, and the world seems to stop in that interval between day and evening, exuding a cold shining. At least on the Jutland Peninsula in Skagen, the nature behaves so.
It is light that captures the viewer's attention in this picture. The reflection of the sailboat in the water, the sparkling moonlight, the depth and transparency of the water off the coast - it is difficult to resist the epithets describing the Krøyer's paintings of the “blue period”. Although, despite the artist's proximity to the Impressionists, despite the fact that many researchers believe that he had stayed in Paris, his name would have been on par with Renoir, Degas and Monet, we cannot say that the image of the light-and-air mass, the play of light, the shades of color is the main subject of this artwork. The subject is something else besides the dazzling blue.
Marie was 16 years younger than Soren, as the artist's relatives called him. In the painting it is certainly noticeable. Well, the age is not a hindrance for love. Even the shades of their clothing have something in common, though they highlight the differences : Marie's snow-white gown with a golden belt and Peder's white shirt and a beige suit ... The woman is painted in smooth strokes, while the man in the picture seems to consist of many angles. Marie’s arms are lowered, as if she does not notice her husband holding her hand. Her gaze and her body are directed away, she turns away from him. In her posture there is the desire to move away, to take a step on the moonlit path. The dog Rup is by Krøyer's foot, much closer to him, and it's not about just the centimeters of the canvas. Two ships are visible in the distance: a snow-white sailboat with its wide sail oscillating from the wind echoes the dress and the airiness of the Marie's image, and the other one is completely different, like Soren and his beautiful wife.
Maybe when Krøyer painted his wife, she always got that way — a detached and sad? By no means! This is how Marie looked at us from his early paintings, when they first met, got married, were in love: 1, 2. That Marie has not yet abandoned her painting classes, she has not yet believed that her talent is mediocre if compared to Severin, she has not yet had the opportunity to face the exhausting repetitive manifestations of her husband's manic-depressive syndrome. The previous images of Marie were not filled with fatigue, which this beautiful woman radiates amidst the incredible blue color of Krøyer while standing next to him and secretly dreaming of being at some other place. Soon she will succeed. See what happened between the artist and his wife in The Artist's Wife (Marie Krøyer, 2012) film.
Krøyer presented this painting at the 1900 exhibition in Charlottenborg. The public was rather cold qualifying the work as too banal. How to say…
Written by Alain Esaulova
It is light that captures the viewer's attention in this picture. The reflection of the sailboat in the water, the sparkling moonlight, the depth and transparency of the water off the coast - it is difficult to resist the epithets describing the Krøyer's paintings of the “blue period”. Although, despite the artist's proximity to the Impressionists, despite the fact that many researchers believe that he had stayed in Paris, his name would have been on par with Renoir, Degas and Monet, we cannot say that the image of the light-and-air mass, the play of light, the shades of color is the main subject of this artwork. The subject is something else besides the dazzling blue.
Marie was 16 years younger than Soren, as the artist's relatives called him. In the painting it is certainly noticeable. Well, the age is not a hindrance for love. Even the shades of their clothing have something in common, though they highlight the differences : Marie's snow-white gown with a golden belt and Peder's white shirt and a beige suit ... The woman is painted in smooth strokes, while the man in the picture seems to consist of many angles. Marie’s arms are lowered, as if she does not notice her husband holding her hand. Her gaze and her body are directed away, she turns away from him. In her posture there is the desire to move away, to take a step on the moonlit path. The dog Rup is by Krøyer's foot, much closer to him, and it's not about just the centimeters of the canvas. Two ships are visible in the distance: a snow-white sailboat with its wide sail oscillating from the wind echoes the dress and the airiness of the Marie's image, and the other one is completely different, like Soren and his beautiful wife.
Maybe when Krøyer painted his wife, she always got that way — a detached and sad? By no means! This is how Marie looked at us from his early paintings, when they first met, got married, were in love: 1, 2. That Marie has not yet abandoned her painting classes, she has not yet believed that her talent is mediocre if compared to Severin, she has not yet had the opportunity to face the exhausting repetitive manifestations of her husband's manic-depressive syndrome. The previous images of Marie were not filled with fatigue, which this beautiful woman radiates amidst the incredible blue color of Krøyer while standing next to him and secretly dreaming of being at some other place. Soon she will succeed. See what happened between the artist and his wife in The Artist's Wife (Marie Krøyer, 2012) film.
Krøyer presented this painting at the 1900 exhibition in Charlottenborg. The public was rather cold qualifying the work as too banal. How to say…
Written by Alain Esaulova
