Inspired by Émile Zola’s novels, Nordic painters including Krohg, and Werenskiold, American Charles Ulrich, Gandolfo in Sicily, and others. How Roll’s painting of a strike led to Zola’s ‘Germinal’.
Krohg
In the weaving contest between Arachne and Minerva, used by the Fates, cropped to weaken Samson, in the Annunciation, or simply for cutting.
A man furtively making off with two loaves, Vermeer’s Milkmaid, baking bread in rural Sweden, a traditional baking oven, and glistening alongside mackerel and glassware.
The goddess Ceres, The Last Supper, and the supper at Emmaus, Easter Sunday bread in Ukraine, bread as charity and the daily bread.
Trained in Germany because there was no academy in Norway, he soon developed themes of poverty, social injustice, and Norway’s independence. A major influence on Edvard Munch.
Series showing the sailing of smaller vessels, and ship, then a further series of a model getting dressed and leaving the studio, and one last painting.
Portraits of his young wife, struggling for survival in the Norwegian winter, bathing a newborn baby, the discovery of America, nationhood and open narrative.
Themes of exhausted mothers with sick children, the tired out seamstress and her descent into prostitution, the failure of law enforcement, and documenting those living in Skagen.
To commemorate the centenary of his death. Early work with the Nordic Impressionists in Skagen, a sick girl that influenced Munch, sailors and self-portraits.
Paintings of police from lictors in ancient Rome, through ‘Peelers’ in London, to those regulating prostitution and trying to control striking workers.
The Eclectic Light Company 