P.S. Krøyer
This painting has been published thanks to Skagens Museum in Denmark. Don't forget to follow them on Instagram! Midsummer Eve Bonfire on Skagen's Beach was the last large picture that P.S. Krøyer painted. He was known as a very fast and productive artist, but for this painting - finished in 1906 when his eyesight had begun to dim - he had started on the first sketches for the motif some 14 years earlier.
The painting was exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1907, although Krøyer was not completely satisfied with it and thought that the sky had become too dark. Arts critics were more preoccupied with the fact that Krøyer had used such a large format to depict a semi-private event, as such formats were usually reserved for historical, mythological or religious motifs. Instead, the painting is a tribute to the artists' colony, but Krøyer himself is not in the picture. This is the first time he depicts the locals together with the artists and the people from the middle classes positioned mostly on the bright, left side of the painting, whilst the majority of the Skagen people are placed on the darker right side.
Krøyer has depicted his ex-wife Marie and composer Hugo Alfvén standing slightly on their own by a boat at the back of the picture. he made a sketch of Marie and Alfvén's figures as early as 1903, and that very year Krøyer was busy making several other sketches for the large painting, which he was convinced would turn out to be an entertaining and magnificent picture. In 1903, Alfvén spent quite a long period of time in Skagen, staying in a rented house close to Krøyer's house in the plantation. At this stage, Krøyer still hoped that Marie's infatuation with Alfvén was merely a phase that she had to get through. Even so, one might wonder why Krøyer did not paint over their figures, but maybe he simply could not bring himself to do this. Marie and P.S. Krøyer separated in 1905 and were divorced the following year; the same year he finished this painting.