The power of restraint: Denmark’s anti-Impressionist, Vilhelm Hammershøi - Published in Seattle Times, July 19, 2016
Hammershøi’s works — dazzling in their own right — reflect his focus on solitude, silence and a universe reduced to shades of gray.
 In Hammershøi’s interiors, most people, like “Woman Seen from the Back” (1888), are turned away or preoccupied. | During my recent preview stroll through the Vilhelm Hammershøi painting exhibition at the Frye Museum, the staff seemed a bit concerned about potential attendance — understandably so. Besides the fact that the 19th-century Danish artist Hammershøi is an unfamiliar name to most people, his work does not present the immediate dazzle and charm of his exact contemporaries, the Impressionists, whose crowd-pleasing celebrations of color, urban energy and pleasure are the opposite of Hammershøi’s focus on solitude, silence and a universe reduced to shades of gray. Once one overcomes, however, the initial shock of encountering such a restrained and understated vision, the subtle and sophisticated pleasures of this very eccentric artist’s work start to become apparent. |
