Goldfinches

Goldfinches is a superb example of the Swedish artist Bruno Liljefors’s painting at its very best. The small, refined, and intimate fragments of nature from the 1880s rank among the artist’s most beloved and sought-after works. In these boldly cropped compositions, Liljefors moves extremely close to his subjects, depicting the varied wildlife of the Uppland countryside. The compositional model clearly shows the influence of contemporary French painting and, not least, the Japanese woodcuts that were à la mode in the 1880s—even though Liljefors himself denied ever having studied Japanese art.

When depicting the wooded hills, fields, and vast meadows of his home region, teeming with animal life, he chose steep perspectives and surprising, asymmetrical angles. Flowers, blades of grass, or—as in this catalog entry—thistles (rendered with a calligraphic quality reminiscent of Asian art …) appear in the immediate foreground, alongside a pair of goldfinches.

This beautiful artwork is featured in our brand-new Winter and Holiday Season Postcards Set! 🎄

And ho, ho, ho — because it’s St. Nicholas Day, we’re adding a free gift to every order over $100! Visit our DailyArt Shop and enjoy your present.  :)

P.S. Test your art history knowledge in our Bird Art Quiz!