Despite his successes with oil painting, Anders Zorn continued to paint watercolours. What to all appearances was his rapid, deft technique was perfect for capturing the unpredictable life of the city. A masterpiece of the genre is his Impressions de Londres, which gives a crisp account of a London street on a rainy day. A woman dressed in grey and black is crossing the street, holding up her skirts to keep them dry. She is poised between a white horse in harness, whose body is cut off by the picture’s edge, and a lamp post with advertisements hanging from the ladder bars. A green double-decker omnibus disappears off to the right. The bold photographic cropping reinforces the impression of movement on the busy street. Above the shop to the left is a conspicuous sign in large yellow lettering that forms the word »[Comp]any«, marking the modern urban visual environment that the Impressionists were so interested in. The buildings further away in the picture are blotted out by the rain. A few pedestrians pass by on the other side of the street. The artist has managed to capture the reflection of the white backlight on the wet street, while the rain blurs the objects’ outlines. The watercolour was probably done during Zorn’s trip to London for Christmas and New Year 1889–90.
Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014
