Oskar Bergman - Sunset through the Pines, 1906

Oskar Bergman (1879–1963) Sweden

Sunset through the Pines, 1906

signed and dated lower left “Oskar Bergman 1906”
oil on canvas laid down on board
unframed 37 × 55 cm (14.6 × 21.7 in)
framed 47 × 64 cm (18.5 × 25.2 in)
presented in a handmade frame by Stockholms Förgyllning & Bildhuggeri.

Provenance:
A Swedish private collection. 

Condition report:
The painting is in fine overall condition and has recently been professionally cleaned by our conservator. The colours are clear and well preserved. The canvas has been laid down on board. Presented in a newly made, handmade frame by Stockholms Förgyllning & Bildhuggeri.

Please contact the gallery for a more detailed condition report.

Essay:
Painted in 1906, Sunset through the Pines belongs to an important early period in Oskar Bergman’s career. The composition is striking in its simplicity. Tall pine trunks rise almost vertically through the picture, their dark silhouettes forming a screen between the viewer and an intensely glowing horizon. Beyond them, the last light of the day burns in brilliant passages of red and orange before gradually dissolving into muted green, brown and grey. A pale moon appears through the trees at the left, introducing a second, cooler source of light as evening takes hold.

The painting is less concerned with describing a particular place than with capturing a moment of transition. Much of the foreground has already disappeared into darkness. Individual trees merge into larger silhouettes, while the narrow opening beyond the forest seems illuminated from within. Bergman allows the sunset to become the emotional centre of the image.

Oskar Bergman was born in Stockholm in 1879 and studied at Tekniska aftonskolan between 1896 and 1900. Although he is often described as largely self taught, he developed his art through intensive observation of nature, museum study and travel. An important early supporter was the banker and collector Ernest Thiel. Bergman lived periodically at the artists’ home financed by Signe Maria and Ernest Thiel at Neglinge in Saltsjöbaden, and the couple became important patrons of his work. Today, with more than forty works, Bergman is one of the most extensively represented artists in the collection of the Thiel Gallery.

The years immediately preceding the present painting were especially formative. In 1904 and 1905 Bergman travelled to Italy, supported by Thiel, and studied with the French Symbolist painter Armand Point at Fiesole. He also encountered early Renaissance painting and travelled through Italy and France. In the autumn of 1905 he made his exhibition debut at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm alongside Ivar Arosenius, Arvid Jacobsson and Gerhard Henning.

The following year, 1906, when the present work was painted, Bergman held his first solo exhibition at Hallins Konsthandel in Stockholm and settled in the Stockholm archipelago, where he would remain until 1914. The date therefore places Sunset through the Pines at a particularly significant point, when the young artist was beginning to establish the pictorial language that would define his mature work.

Bergman’s early paintings reveal strong connections with both Symbolism and Japonism. These influences can be sensed here in the pronounced simplification of the landscape. The tall trunks divide the surface into vertical bands, while the fiery horizon forms a narrow horizontal strip. Depth is present, but the composition simultaneously possesses an almost decorative flatness. The trees are both natural forms and structural elements within the image.

This balance between precise observation and stylisation became fundamental to Bergman’s art. He was deeply attentive to the natural world, but his landscapes rarely function simply as topographical records. Forest interiors, isolated trees, snow, water and changing light were transformed into quiet, often dreamlike images. Human figures are usually absent, allowing nature itself to carry the emotional content.

In the present painting, however, the mood is more dramatic than in many of the serene watercolours for which Bergman later became celebrated. The intense red horizon is almost startling against the dense forest. At the same time, the trees prevent the sunset from becoming merely spectacular. Their dark trunks interrupt the colour and give the composition a sense of stillness and restraint.