HAMMERSHØI, Vilhelm
(b. 1864, København, d. 1916, København)

Interior with the Artist's Easel

1910
Oil on canvas, 84 x 69 cm
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

This painting is one of those interiors for which Hammershøi is famous. He would return to the subject over and over again, always trying out new effects. The paintings depict empty, ascetic, and eerily static rooms infused with a silent, tense atmosphere and with a mellow light falling in through the windows to gently touch the walls.

Hammershøi's interiors are indebted to Danish art from the first half of the 19th century and to Dutch 17th-century art, but they stand apart from their predecessors with their unique, eerie atmosphere.