From 9 December 2012 to 5 May 2013, the Groninger Museum will present the exhibition entitled Nordic Art 1880 – 1920. This exhibition is a tribute to the peoples and cultures of the Nordic countries, and provides an overview of 19th and 20th-century North European painting. The splendid landscapes, portraits and scenes from everyday rural life display both the similarities and the differences between the Nordic countries. The exhibition focuses on the time when movements such as Realism, Naturalism and more divergent styles such as Symbolism and upcoming Modernism existed side by side.
In North Europe, the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries formed a crucial era in artistic, cultural and intellectual development. The artworks created in that period represented those changing ambitions. Edvard Munch, Akseli Gallen-Kallela and August Strindberg are major examples in this context. With their lucid and striking works, they manage to capture the poetic beauty, the core and spirit of the mystical North. Although Nordic art has its roots in European culture, the artists could emphasize their own identity by depicting North European life.
