Author(s): Felix Kramer

Art

This comprehensive survey is published to coincide with an exhibition of the art of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi (18641916). Hammershois subject-matter centred on haunting interiors. Dispensing with anecdotal detail, he transformed his apartment into a series of disturbingly empty spaces. The same strange stillness can be seen in his portraits, landscapes and city views of his native Copenhagen and of London, in all of which the passage of time appears to have been inexplicably suspended. The book is beautifully illustrated with works that span all stages of Hammershois career, while the essays explore the singularity of his vision, placing his achievement in the context of fin-de-siecle Symbolist art and examining his links with Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.