Luminous Modernism Scandinavian Art Comes to America, 1912, Including: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Prins Eugens, Carl Larsson, Eugène Jansson, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ásgrímur Jónsson, Edvard Munch, Harlad Sohlberg and Anders Zorn. October 25, 2011- February

Luminous Modernism Scandinavian Art Comes to America, 1912, Including: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Prins Eugens, Carl Larsson, Eugène Jansson, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ásgrímur Jónsson, Edvard Munch, Harlad Sohlberg and Anders Zorn. October 25, 2011- February 11, 2012, Scandinavia House, New York. by craniv boyd.

To recreate an art exhibition, one hundred years after it has transpired, could be boredom, or fear inducing. no so for the centennial celebration, of Luminous Modernism, which celebrated one hundred years of the introduction of modern painting from Nordic countries to the United States. The exhibition took place in the the intimate third floor galleries of the Scandinavia House on Park Avenue.  The paintings were exemplars of an alternate modernism, that all-though influential, in Continental Europe and North America, has perhaps been overlooked in recent years.   

The most popularly known of the artists included in this exhibition is of course, the angst ridden Norwegian, Edvard Munch. Well known for his painting the scream, of a screaming wraith on a expressionist bridge. In the exhibition he was represented by more stayed paintings, of the quotidian life of a monied class in Cristinanborg, now Oslo. A painting of a youth bathing on a beach, holds what could be interpreted as a silent scream, the darker side of a so called bourgeois Paradise. Somehow view of the artist, Munch, imbues trepidation on the face of a boy who should be having a good time on a seaside family outing. There is a profound, conflicting set of moods which are expressed on the painting. Horror in the sea, boredom with the family, cold on a bright summer day, isolation from the clothed women, in straw bonnets off to the side.  

The Icelandic painter Ásgrímur Jónsson, is represented by landscape paintings set in the countryside of Iceland. Seeing as this landscape painting of rural and natural phenominæ, was created,  at the start of the 20th century a time when Iceland was under the Danish crown, Ásgrímur Jónsson might have had an awareness raising aim with his paintings of the land. Landscape painting as nationalist task, to portray the land of Iceland as beautiful with the hopes towards an independence, perhaps. 

Vigorous oil colors are what  the Swedish painter Anders Zorn provides, specific times of day in the landscape, are limits that determine some of his paintings. This village at dusk, or these woods early in the morning, the paintings have characteristica of sunlight seen from the far north.What is striking is that some of the paintings of Stockholm from a hundred years ago but for a few details in the dress of people, diverge from a current picture of the capital of Scandinavia. The view of a desolated winter snow filled street in Gammle Stan could in all likely hood be found today, but a stones throw from the Seven Eleven of course.

To re examine art works by Nordic artists that were presented to an New York Public one hundred years ago is diverting. That these paintings still have a legitimate communicative power, regardless if you have seen a Danish sand dune with your own eyes or not, is impressive.by craniv boyd.