Hammershoi

by Felix Krämer (Contributor)

This comprehensive survey, published to coincide with a major exhibition, explores the work of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916). In haunting interior scenes, Hammershøi dispensed with anecdotal detail, transforming his apartment into a series of disturbingly empty spaces. The same strange stillness can be seen in his portraits, landscapes, and city views of his native Copenhagen and of London, in all of which the passage of time appears to have been inexplicably suspended.

 

Expertly produced, Hammershøi explores the singularity of the artist’s vision, placing his achievement in the context of ?n-de-siècle Symbolist art and examining his links with Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. Widely revered in Europe during his lifetime, Hammershøi is now ripe for rediscovery.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

173 pages, Hardcover

First published July 7, 2008

Reviews

[Cat {Pemberley and Beyond} · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the exhibition at the RA that this book was written to complement. Gosh, does it do that well! many of the details about necks, conflicts and silence in Hammershoi's work were explored.

[Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book compliments the exhibiton at the Royal Academy very well. His studies of silence, emptiness and space are really full of peace and conflict. The figures anonymous and opaque seem to transmit such a dynamic internal world of conflict that their is an immediate sense or 'I know...' Wonderful exhibition and a good book to compliment it.

[Ryuichi Maeda]

great.