One of Norway’s most famous artists, a pioneering woman painter and influential teacher. Exploring the play of light on interiors and more.
Impressionism
After some history paintings, he travelled to Venice, where many of his finest paintings were made. Then he fell ill with TB and died when he was only 25.
He painted successful watercolour views of Paris before he turned 18, and went on to paint across Europe in oils and watercolours that had great influence.
He trained in Paris from 1886, painting in the artists’ colony at Grez from 1890. He then returned to Japan, where he led the development of Western style, and Japanese Impressionism.
After the First Impressionist exhibition, he concentrated on achieving success at the Salon, and Durand-Ruel represented him.
Mentor to the young Claude Monet, he was successful at the Salon, and took part in the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874.
His Impressionism changed into a dazzling Luminism. He painted a series of famous views of the River Thames when in exile in London.
From detailed realism in a Barbizon style around 1880, his paintings steadily filled with rich light, through Impressionism the 1890s.
The long-running thread in many of his paintings, his quest for visual truth, seen in the blind Michelangelo, the arena, a courtesan on trial, and Truth coming out of her well.
Two unusual treatments of popular myths, an enigmatic series of the personification of Truth, two religious works, and a work that inspired Surrealists in the 20th century.
The Eclectic Light Company 