With minute brush strokes, Vilhelm Hammershoei has reproduced a stark room. It was one of his favourite motifs. Another one was women turning their backs. Both motifs appear closed and reserved. They don't give away much - at first glance. But this is exactly what makes them enigmatic and attractive.
Like a dream
The painting is stringent and geometric. It's an empty box that we, the spectator, must fill. The delicate colour scale, nearly only greys, creates a quiet poetry. The picture is inward-looking and talks to our feelings and dreams. The light that shines at an angle through the room has the title role. The precise meaning of the light is up to you. Is it a dream or a nightmare? Does the dance in the soft light appeal to you or do you want to get out of the naked room?
Open the door!
As in Hammershoei's other interior paintings, there is a way out of the intrusive emptiness in The Dance of the Dust in the Rays of the Sun. There are always doors - open or closed - and windows, indicating that there is a world outside. Hammershoei opened doors himself. Like many of his fellow artists he travelled in Europe and inhaled the smouldering new trends.
With his empty geometric room he turned his back to the naturalism that was taught at the Royal Art Academy. Like his fellow painter L.A. Ring, Hammershoei is a symbolist, pointing ahead towards modernism with a focus on form, colour and composition rather than the actual imagery and plot.
Trine Moeller Madsen is a writer on art and cultural affairs and an author. Among her works is "KUNST" ("Art") (Gyldendal, 2004), a textbook on image analysis for the oldest students in the Danish Folkeskole.
The Dance of the Dust in the Rays of the Sun
Photo: Pernille Klemp.