Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864 - 1916)

Vilhelm Hammershøi

Vilhelm Hammershøi was a Danish painter of predominantly interiors, a representative of the Symbolist movement.

Vilhelm studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and a few years later at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris, four of his paintings were exhibited in the Danish pavilion. Hammershøi was the last significant painter in nineteenth-century Danish art. He painted against a background of contemporary experience, but his painting never deviated from the basic rules of Danish Golden Age paintings.

At first his motifs alternated between figure and landscape painting, and later Hammershøi became truly an interior painter. Rooms became a constant source of subjects for him, and the walls and windows that form the boundary to the world almost literally became the backdrop for his paintings. People in his paintings, if present, then as silent statues, completely immersed in their thoughts. All his works, whether portraits, interiors or landscapes, are full of silence, peace and melancholy.