Rua em Oslo 1911

Harald Sohlberg’s ‘Rua em Oslo’ presents a streetscape rendered with a beautiful sense of serenity. It is a landscape full of buildings, fences and snow. The sky is a solid block of ochre, and looking at it, I think maybe Sohlberg has noticed the light and colour of the sky and decided to lay it down as a memory, or a way to get it out of his system. The buildings are painted with these careful, muted strokes of blue, and the snow is thick, inviting. It's like he wants you to feel that quietness. I know that feeling; that of wanting to capture it. There’s this bare tree reaching up, its branches so thin and delicate and dark against the sky, like it's drawing lines across the painting. It makes me wonder if this painting is a bit like a diary entry for Sohlberg. Painters—we are all in conversation, riffing off each other, across decades. In Sohlberg's painting, I see an invitation to slow down, to look closely, and to find beauty in the unexpected.