Why the most expensive Danish artist painted the same gloomy interiors all his life: The Riddle of Hammersheim

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The same interiors, gloomy, barely lit by the dim northern sun. A motionless female figure in dark - now at the window, now at the table. No plot, no action, and even the color is almost exclusively shades of gray. The most expensive Danish artist Wilhelm Hammersheim, a contemporary of Van Gogh and Cézanne, painted the room in which he lived all his life. And in 2020, his work is incredibly close to each of us …

The artist was born in 1864 in Copenhagen, the son of a wealthy merchant. Hammershei became interested in painting as a child. In fact, he was one of those who are called geeks - it is known that already at the age of eight he aroused the interest of adult artists in his native Denmark. Here we must pay tribute to his mother Frederica Amalia - it was she who considered the young talent in her son and was engaged in its promotion, in general, all her life. Both his and his - Hammersheim was destined to outlive his mother for only a year. At first, the boy learned the secrets of painting under the guidance of Niels Christian Kierkegaard, a cousin of the famous philosopher Seren Kierkegaard. Then he entered the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, becoming one of its youngest students, continued his studies at the Independent School. “I don’t understand him,” said another teacher of Hammersheim, the painter Peder Kreyer. Hammersheim's contemporaries, critics and art critics did not understand … It is not surprising, however, that a sharp jump in its popularity occurred in 2020, when, finding ourselves in self-isolation during the coronavirus epidemic, each of us, in a sense, came closer to understanding the riddle of Hammersheim.

He presented his work to the general public at the age of twenty-one and was warmly received by critics. His early work was admired by Pierre Auguste Renoir. However, five years later, the Academy refused to exhibit his work. However, he was not alone in this fate, and Hammersheim proved to be a real rebel - he took part in the creation of the Independent Exhibition of 1891, which was of great importance for the development of Danish modernism. And in the same year, another event occurred in his life that required remarkable courage - he got married.

The marriage was childless. The couple traveled a lot, spent a lot of time together. Since then, a motionless female figure in black, with neatly tied hair, has repeatedly appeared in his works. She then looks out the window, then stands still at the table - always with her back to the viewer … This is his wife Ida Ilsten - a constant and almost the only model for many years. The strange angle chosen for her by Hammersheim is quite traditional for Danish painting. The artist drew inspiration from Vermeer's paintings - however, his own painting was devoid of that deep Vermeer symbolism, contained in many skillfully painted things.

The works of Wilhelm Hammersey really seem to be aliens from the distant past, but in fact he was a contemporary of such painting revolutionaries as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse. Researchers of Hammersheim's creativity have always been confused by its radical otherness and at the same time isolation within the same themes, motives, and what is there - interiors. It seemed that he arbitrarily cut himself off from all current creative tendencies, he lived, as if not knowing about the existence of modernist trends. One gets the impression that he was not influenced by either post-impressionism, or pointillism, or the daring color searches of the Fauves. In addition, his surviving correspondence did not contain any mention of exhibitions, meetings with artists, any of his reflections on contemporary painting, and in general, Hammersheim's letters were dry and short, like telegrams.

However, his few friends, on the contrary, mentioned visits to the vernissages with him and discussions about the development of art. Wilhelm Hammersheim traveled a lot, he was definitely familiar with contemporary painting trends. I just chose not to follow them.

However, Hammersheim loved and respected James Whistler. One of his early works, a portrait of his mother, practically duplicates a similar work by Whistler - the same static pose, the same mean coloring. Whistler and Hammersheim were contemporaries, but they were unable to talk. Apparently, the Danish artist was not a particularly sociable person - the case when the silence and seclusion of paintings perfectly reflects the inner world of their creator. Although once he plucked up courage and during one of his travels he went to visit his idol. Whistler was not at home. Again Hammershei did not dare to meet with him …

Wilhelm Hammersheim is often referred to as a Symbolist, but, most likely, he was a kind of anti-symbolist and filled his canvases with only absolute inaction, silence, absence - in every sense. Gradually, the ghostly figures of the characters disappeared from his painting, only half-empty rooms, dim light and dust particles dancing in the pale rays of the northern sun remained.

He wrote what he knew - his home was very modestly furnished. It is known that he regularly rearranged furniture there, wishing to achieve only his most famous creative goals. Sometimes he looked out the window and painted claustrophobic, almost abstract views of the courtyard. In the work of Hammersheim there is both architectural painting and landscapes, but their number is relatively small. The nature on the canvases of the Danish artist is just as quiet and deserted.

The artist died of throat cancer in 1918 at the age of fifty-one. His work was forgotten for almost a century. However, in the 2010s, interest in the work of Hammershei resumed sharply and is growing steadily to this day. Recently, one of his works was sold at Sotheby's for six million dollars, which earned Hammersheim the status of the most expensive Danish painter. The works of "Danish Vermeer" can be found in the largest and most significant collections of world art - the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Orsay Museum in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London.