beside the easel

Blue Interior, 1883 Born on the 21 of January in 1845, Harriet Backer was a Norwegian painter known for her introspective interiors and vivid colors. Having studied in Europe with various artists and travelled with her sister Agathe, a noted pianist and composer of the time, Backer became an influential artist pioneering both an Impressionist and Natural Realism. Backer travelled extensively not only throughout Europe but studied in her native land, and in Munich and Paris. Her work is characterized by a genre style of daily life infused with light and color not often seen, especially in her often thick brushwork which is sometimes reminiscent of her Swedish contemporary Anders Zorn, born twenty years after her. Despite not painting portraits or nudes, Backer's allure is in being able to articulate simplicity in a way that draws the viewer in, always experimenting with her brushstrokes and tonality...a poet of the people. In Blue Interior above, we can clearly see how Backer...