Winter Night in the Mountains

This sublime landscape by Norwegian artist Harald Sohlberg (1869–1935) is a portrayal of the mystical Rondane mountains. Sohlberg was captivated by the natural world, and with the mountains of Rondane in particular, having first encountered them on a skiing trip in 1899. He returned to the region many times throughout his life, producing countless sketches, watercolors, lithographs, and paintings. Winter Night in the Mountains is perhaps Sohlberg’s most famous work and is now regarded as the National Painting of Norway. Rather than a naturalistic reproduction of the mountain range, the painting is a composite derived from many sketches, photographs, and painted studies, taking 14 years to complete. In this way Sohlberg often mythologized the places he visited in his paintings, creating landscapes that are at once familiar and fantastical.

Of his first encounter with Rondane, Sohlberg wrote, “I was almost overcome by a rush of emotion greater than I had ever experienced before. The longer I stood gazing at the scene the more I seemed to feel what a solitary and pitiful atom I was in an endless universe.”

The deep blues of this painting were also a dominant theme in much Norwegian painting from the 19th century, seen in works by Edvard Munch, Eilif Peterssen, and Nikolai Astrup.

The painting from the collection of Nasjonalmuseet can be seen at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from today until 2 June as part of Harald Sohlberg: Painting Norway, celebrating 150 years since the artist’s birth.