Steplights from 1889 is an excellent example of how bruno liljefors was influenced by japanese painting during the last decades of the 19th century. In 1854, japan opened its borders to the outside world and this led to japanese objects such as woodcuts and ceramics beginning to spread to the western world. The ardent interest in japan and its art is today called japonism. During the 1880s, japanese influences found their way into swedish art. The swedish artists' first encounter with japanese art and handicrafts was in paris, and many were strongly impressed. The artists of the grez-sur-loing colony began to explore new ways of composing images. Carl larsson wrote in 1919 "as an artist, japan is my motherland". In this japonistic spirit, bruno liljefors paints the steplights. Precisely cropping the image to a long narrow surface and placing the subject in the close foreground with the landscape or the sky in a clearly separated background, as liljefors does, was a common stylistic approach that grew out of this trend. Even the artist's way of painting the sky in a decorative and almost superficial way can be connected to it. Object Type: painting. Date: 1889. Dimensions: height: 87 cm (34.2 in); width: 28 cm (11 in). Medium: oil on canvas. Collection: Private collection. Bruno Liljefors - Goldfinches 1889
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