Technical description
Provenance
-1899-1905:
Artist
Nikolai Astrup
(1880-1928)
1905-1908-:
Purchased at exhibition by
Augusta Waaler
(1871-)
-1908-1993:
N. N.
1993-current:
Purchased by
Private owner
Exhibition history
Solo exhibition
2016-10-2 - 2017-1-22
Nikolai Astrup: Norwegen. Eine Entdeckung
Emden
Catalogue number 104
See exhibition
Group exhibition
The Artist's Notes
“Midsummer Eve”
You mention my picture “Midsummer Eve” as one, that You remember best from my exhi- bition, and which You would have liked to buy – I
will therefore permit myself to tell You the history of this picture, even though You are a complete stranger to me and may therefore think, that I am being intimate and intrusive – but it is not in order to initiate any acquaintanceship, that I write this. You can be assured that you will remain free of any “[clinging]” on my part in the future. But it is so seldom a stranger openly gives one their recognition as You do to me – that I believe I dare permit myself to talk about this picture – especially as You seem to have had a particular interest in its mystique. It is not my most accomplished picture in a purely painterly sense – but art often lies beyond the purely painterly con- cepts – it is the mystique – the art lover instinctively feels, when he stands before it without being able to indicate the painterly means – or what the mystique consists of.
He can only sense that something has been intimately experienced – backed by events – in a picture that is good art. The picture Midsummer Eve is among the first, that I painted – the young girl staring at the fire and most of the land- scape I had painted before I enrolled in the painting school in Christiania, before I had seen any art – this profile of a child belongs to my most intense child- hood memories. – I attempted back then with my simple house paint colours as truthfully naturally and intensely as possible to paint from my childhood memory a little peasant girl from the neighbouring farm. I will paint her again – if I live a while longer. Like me and many other children here in West Norway she was obliged to suffer under the religious fanaticism, that raged among the elders here for a period, – everything
was a sin – (even riding [downhill] on a sled.) And on Midsummer Eve when the bonfires blazed throughout the mountains and the people swarmed like blacks dots up the sides of the mountains, and the girls dressed in red with white shirt sleeves formed rings of bright dots and sparks around the flares – then it was a sin for Christian folk to join in – so the little girl and I had to stand at a distance behind the fence and watch and listen to how the others danced around the bonfire and shouted in joyful appreciation of nature – the last remains of an ancient religion that unconsciously flared up; – I had the impression that this bonfire was something sinful, ugly[,] being carried out in the shadowy green semi-darkness – something pagan – and this was strengthened even more by the envy that dug into my breast – when the other children were allowed to join in, and I had to stand on the outside. And that is how I perceived my little fellow sufferer and the ugly yellow fire, that did not light
up the summer night; but which nevertheless lured and drew me to it, precisely because it was surrounded by mystique, wickedness and ruthlessness raw pagan- ism – and in the end I dared join the sinners, but the little girl stayed behind and watched with a pale countenance and the large black eyes that sucked in the fire; – and that is how the picture was originally imprinted in me. – I would not have remembered anything of this image, if something had not happened to me later which refreshed my memory. – Early one morning in late autumn a message was sent around to all the farms – people were called up to the mountains to participate in a search – my little girl had disappeared. All day long the mountain was teeming with people searching. In the evening everyone descended towards the lake, and while we were resting on the ground right above the lake and sat looking out over it, we caught sight of something
pale far out on a steep underwater incline, where we could no longer see the bottom. – I took one of the farm boys with me out in a boat – yes it was her – she had drowned herself; because it was shallow all the way out to where she lay. I dived down to the bottom – it was at a great depth and large eerie stones surrounded her, which she clung to – I pulled her loose, and while rising up through the water holding her, I could see her large black eyes, staring at me – that is when I remembered Mid- summer Eve. My first pictures I painted with ordinary house paint colours and one of the first attempts occurred on Midsummer Eve and so I attempted to paint this little girl and the bonfire, the landscape I touched up a little afterwards, when I had got hold of better paints; but the bonfire, the young girl and the fence remain as they were back when I painted it, I never dared to touch it since.
Bibliography
C. W. Blomqvist Kunsthandel, to Astrup, Nikolai, 1905–04–27. Jø20, D.1.3.
Midsummer Eve in the Mountain Village
Oil on canvas, 1899 - 1905, 655 x 1070 mm
Private owner
Photo: Thomas Widerberg (2015)
Technical description
Provenance
-1899-1905:
Artist
Nikolai Astrup
(1880-1928)
1905-1908-:
Purchased at exhibition by
Augusta Waaler
(1871-)
-1908-1993:
N. N.
1993-current:
Purchased by
Private owner
Exhibition history
Solo exhibition
2016-10-2 - 2017-1-22
Nikolai Astrup: Norwegen. Eine Entdeckung
Emden
Catalogue number 104
See exhibition
Group exhibition
The Artist's Notes
“Midsummer Eve”
You mention my picture “Midsummer Eve” as one, that You remember best from my exhi- bition, and which You would have liked to buy – I
will therefore permit myself to tell You the history of this picture, even though You are a complete stranger to me and may therefore think, that I am being intimate and intrusive – but it is not in order to initiate any acquaintanceship, that I write this. You can be assured that you will remain free of any “[clinging]” on my part in the future. But it is so seldom a stranger openly gives one their recognition as You do to me – that I believe I dare permit myself to talk about this picture – especially as You seem to have had a particular interest in its mystique. It is not my most accomplished picture in a purely painterly sense – but art often lies beyond the purely painterly con- cepts – it is the mystique – the art lover instinctively feels, when he stands before it without being able to indicate the painterly means – or what the mystique consists of.
He can only sense that something has been intimately experienced – backed by events – in a picture that is good art. The picture Midsummer Eve is among the first, that I painted – the young girl staring at the fire and most of the land- scape I had painted before I enrolled in the painting school in Christiania, before I had seen any art – this profile of a child belongs to my most intense child- hood memories. – I attempted back then with my simple house paint colours as truthfully naturally and intensely as possible to paint from my childhood memory a little peasant girl from the neighbouring farm. I will paint her again – if I live a while longer. Like me and many other children here in West Norway she was obliged to suffer under the religious fanaticism, that raged among the elders here for a period, – everything
was a sin – (even riding [downhill] on a sled.) And on Midsummer Eve when the bonfires blazed throughout the mountains and the people swarmed like blacks dots up the sides of the mountains, and the girls dressed in red with white shirt sleeves formed rings of bright dots and sparks around the flares – then it was a sin for Christian folk to join in – so the little girl and I had to stand at a distance behind the fence and watch and listen to how the others danced around the bonfire and shouted in joyful appreciation of nature – the last remains of an ancient religion that unconsciously flared up; – I had the impression that this bonfire was something sinful, ugly[,] being carried out in the shadowy green semi-darkness – something pagan – and this was strengthened even more by the envy that dug into my breast – when the other children were allowed to join in, and I had to stand on the outside. And that is how I perceived my little fellow sufferer and the ugly yellow fire, that did not light
up the summer night; but which nevertheless lured and drew me to it, precisely because it was surrounded by mystique, wickedness and ruthlessness raw pagan- ism – and in the end I dared join the sinners, but the little girl stayed behind and watched with a pale countenance and the large black eyes that sucked in the fire; – and that is how the picture was originally imprinted in me. – I would not have remembered anything of this image, if something had not happened to me later which refreshed my memory. – Early one morning in late autumn a message was sent around to all the farms – people were called up to the mountains to participate in a search – my little girl had disappeared. All day long the mountain was teeming with people searching. In the evening everyone descended towards the lake, and while we were resting on the ground right above the lake and sat looking out over it, we caught sight of something
pale far out on a steep underwater incline, where we could no longer see the bottom. – I took one of the farm boys with me out in a boat – yes it was her – she had drowned herself; because it was shallow all the way out to where she lay. I dived down to the bottom – it was at a great depth and large eerie stones surrounded her, which she clung to – I pulled her loose, and while rising up through the water holding her, I could see her large black eyes, staring at me – that is when I remembered Mid- summer Eve. My first pictures I painted with ordinary house paint colours and one of the first attempts occurred on Midsummer Eve and so I attempted to paint this little girl and the bonfire, the landscape I touched up a little afterwards, when I had got hold of better paints; but the bonfire, the young girl and the fence remain as they were back when I painted it, I never dared to touch it since.
Bibliography
C. W. Blomqvist Kunsthandel, to Astrup, Nikolai, 1905–04–27. Jø20, D.1.3.