By Carl Johansson
Located in Stockholm, SE
Carl Johansson (1863–1944) Sweden
Lavaklippstrand, Tenerife (Lava Coast, Tenerife), 1894
signed lower left “Carl Johansson”
oil on canvas, executed in grisaille
unframed 27.5 × 49.5 cm (10.8 × 19.5 in)
framed 39 × 61 cm (15.4 × 24 in)
Literature:
För Svenska Hem. Illustrerad Familjetidskrift, first year, 1895–1896, issue 26, pp. 416–417, reproduced across the centre spread.
The contemporary caption reads: “Bild från Tenerife: Lavaklippstrand. Efter en oljemålning för ‘För Sv. Hem’ af Carl Johansson.”
Condition report:
Please contact the gallery for a detailed condition report.
Essay:
Painted during Carl Johansson’s journey to Tenerife in 1894, Lavaklippstrand presents the volcanic Atlantic coastline as an austere study of rock, water and light. Jagged formations of dark lava dominate the foreground and middle distance, breaking the surface of the sea in an irregular progression towards the horizon. Behind them, the coast dissolves gradually into mist, while the almost colourless sky occupies the upper half of the composition. The painting is unusually restrained for a landscape executed during a period when Johansson had recently encountered the brighter palette of modern French painting. Here, instead, he deliberately reduces the scene to a near monochrome range of blacks, greys, browns and white.
Johansson was born in Härnösand in 1863 and studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm between 1882 and 1885, where his teachers included Edvard Perséus and the landscape painter Per Daniel Holm. He belonged to the generation of Swedish artists that increasingly looked beyond academic landscape conventions during the 1880s and 1890s. A period in France in 1891 and 1892 brought him into closer contact with contemporary French landscape painting...
Category
1890s Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings