The view shows Nybroviken, on what was then the outskirts of Stockholm, where the artist had his studio. With its warm, shimmering light, a low sun breaks through the frosty haze and reflects off the frozen sea and icy ground. Some angular buildings are grouped at the picture’s left edge. A steamboat makes its way across the water. Next to a lamp post in the foreground are two figures, and farther on, in the empty field that runs down to the quay, people are walking past.
During the late 1880s, city outskirts became a popular motif, often depicted as desolate places, caught between city and country, and not to civilization’s best advantage. One could follow how the city organism grew, biting off ever larger areas, transforming ancient cultural landscapes into the lifeless city districts. Yet the city also held an endless fascination, with its myriad of people, its wide streets, and humming factories.
Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014
