Oil on canvas, 'A Swedish Lake Scene', Olof Hermelin, Swedish school, 1873

Landscape with water in the foreground; on the left a wood; in the centre a hut and a small wharf with three boats moored by the bow. On the right a boat in full sail in the middle distance, a fringe of woods in the background.

Given by Mrs Elizabeth South

Given by Mrs Elizabeth South, 1908

Historical significance: This painting is typical of the Realist movement emerged in France in the 1840s and pervaded Western Europe throughout the 19th century. Here it is worth noting the broken brushwork and flecks of colours, a technique that seems very much indebted to the art of Charles-Francois Daubigny. Hermelin essentially painted views of Sweden and it is most likely that this painting was executed in plein-air in the Swedish countryside.

19th-century Western art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.

Olof Hermelin (1820-1913) was born in Saeby (Sweden) and attended the Stockholm Academy. He was essentially a landscape painter.

This painting is a fine example of Hermelin's output. It shows a shed on the edge of a lake with boats, probably set in the Swedish countryside. Characteristic of his oeuvre are the broken brushwork and flecks of colours. This type of paintings drawing from the Realist movement was quite popular in the second half of the 19th century.

59-1908