Description

'The lover of light': these were the words used in 1928 by a French critic seeking to describe the great Danish painter Peder Severin Kroyer (1851-1909), who had close ties to the French art scene for more than two decades. Kroyer first arrived in Paris in 1877, and his diaries and travel notes speak eloquently of the crucial impact that French art had on not just Kroyer's own development as a painter, but also on the artists' colony in Skagen and Danish art history in general. In the book, art historians Mette Harbo Lehmann and Dominique Lobstein describe Kroyer's artistic development, progressing from the Royal Danish Art Academy's focus on Danish Golden Age tradition to the advent of Realism and the Modern Breakthrough. They show how inspiration from France can be traced in his atmospheric paintings, especially from Skagen, and point out how French Impressionism influenced Kroyer's distinctive style. The book accompanies the exhibition Kroyer and Paris, on display at the Skagen Museum from 13 May to 18 September 2022, but also constitutes an independent contribution to the study of Kroyer's works and his French connections.