Night Glow

Sohlberg’s work from the 1880s shows the influence of the Naturalist painting of this period, but on his d�but at the Kristiania Autumn Exhibition in 1894 with Night Glow (1893; National Gallery, Oslo), it was evident that his painting was already developing away from the Naturalist tradition. In the following years, Sohlberg continued to evolve the artistic programme that formed Night Glow, but this painting already exhibits most of the characteristics that were to dominate his mature work.

In Night Glow, without distancing himself from the naturalistic form of the objects observed, Sohlberg reproduces nature at the moment of its greatest intensity. He achieves spatial depth by contrasting the dark, densely detailed foreground with its silhouette outlined against a lighter background. The colours are powerfully evocative; Sohlberg experimented with a glazing technique that intensified the glowing intensity of the colours.

Sohlberg is probably the most “Nordic” of all the Norwegian painters in the clarity of his light and his almost surreal vision of nature.