Evening Landscape at Stokkavatnet

The Norwegian artist Kitty Kielland depicted the Stokkavatnet lake in Stavanger just after sunset. In the summer of 1886 Kitty Kielland joined a gathering of artists at Fleskum Farm in Bærum, near Oslo. Other well-known artists present were Christian Skredsvig, Erik Werenskiold, Eilif Peterssen, Gerhard Munthe, and Harriet Backer. The summer at Fleskum marked the start of a new chapter in Norwegian art history, and the works that emerged had a strong influence on the country’s artistic community. The “Fleskum painters” abandoned the ideals of realism and focused instead on painting en plein air and evoking nature’s many different moods.

Detailed water landscapes predominate in Kielland’s works from that summer, and Evening Landscape at Stokkavatnet is considered a masterpiece in its genre. Although Kielland was criticized by her contemporaries for her somber, melancholic paintings, Evening Landscape realistically captures the effects of the changing evening light on the landscape.

P.S. Kitty Kielland is one of the artists featured in our Women Artists 50 Postcards Set!

P.P.S. If you're interested in Kielland's work, here's another of her landscapes depicting Norwegian summer night.

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