Hammershøi exhibition at the Royal Academy

I went to see the Hammershøi exhibition at the Royal Academy just before it closed.

Vilhelm Hammershøi was a reclusive Danish artist working in Copenhagen between 1885 and 1916.

In the way he restricts his use of colour, curtails perspectives, and limits his range of subjects, Hammershøi provokes the imagination of people who look at his work. His work is deceptively simple but actually very complex. The expectant intensity of his paintings conveys the impression of a life lived at a different level of meaning.

The exhibition was on the top floor of the Royal Academy, in five rooms. Admission was £8. The place was packed.

His figures are almost all female, and usually shown at an oblique angle. Sitting in sunlight, sitting in candlelight, standing in gloom. Sewing, playing a piano, carrying a cup of coffee.

He objectified objects – pictures, tables, furniture. We see these objects in a cold opaque light (as if reflected from snow). Biedermeier without the Viennese self-satisfaction.

Architectural scenes devoid of humanity (like the still and timeless interiors of the early black and white photography in Country Life magazine). Omnipresent grey mist. The Christianborg Palace from an angle that makes it resemble a Victorian barracks.

Landscapes – light on water, rows of trees, a northern-baroque church tower.

His portraits are especially fine – expressionless blue-eyed faces, silent and solitary.

I think I like Hammershøi because he takes a very limited world and makes it beautiful and meaningful. Instead of cramming his work with “experience” (colour, activity, exoticism) he makes do with what he has (more than “makes do” – he excels). It’s an anti-materialist manifesto.