MADRID.- The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza is presenting the first major retrospective in Spain devoted to Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916). Ninety oil paintings and drawings by the artist and some of his contemporaries offer a comprehensive overview of the output of a painter who created just over 400 works in his 51 years of existence. Considered one of the most important Danish artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Hammershøi gradually fell into obscurity after the emergence and consolidation of the avant-garde movements. Since the 1980s several exhibitions in Denmark and elsewhere have brought the artist’s work to the attention of a public which, in the case of Spain, has only had the opportunity to see it on a few occasions.

The ambiguity of Hammershøi’s paintings allows for multiple avenues of interpretation, which have been enriched in recent decades by the search for connections with other European artists and by relating the painter to his Danish contemporaries. Viewing Hammershøi’s works in the context of the Museo Thyssen’s collection makes it possible to connect them with those of other masters of the past, such as the 17th-century Dutch painters and the great figures of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The exhibition's subtitle, The Eye that Listens, alludes to the metaphorical relationship between Hammershøi’s painting, silence, the apparent calm it transmits, and the artist's interest in music. The exhibition addresses this theme and others that run through his work, including the role of his wife Ida Ilsted in his creative process, the artist’s progressive refinement of his domestic interiors and their parallels with his treatment of architecture and landscapes, and Hammershøi’s self-representation as a painter in the final years of his life.

After closing in Madrid, the exhibition will be shown at the Kunsthaus Zürich (Switzerland).

1. Overture

Hammershøi soon encountered the themes and palette that would characterise his entire career. Following his academic training and his studies at the Frie Studieskoler (Independent Study Schools), in the early 1880s he painted his first landscapes and figures. The works he presented at the official salons of the Danish Academy met with both detractors and supporters. He joined forces with the latter to found an independent salon, the Frie Udstilling, in 1891, where he exhibited some of the works on display in this room. They include Portrait of Ida Ilsted, the Artist's future Wife (1890) and Evening in the Drawing Room. The Artist's Mother and Wife (1891), works that depict self-absorbed, melancholy figures in austere settings painted in tones of white, grey, brown and black. Hammershøi’s canvases from this period are close to the symbolism and aestheticism of Whistler, whose work he became familiar with through reproductions in art magazines and the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris, at which both artists were represented.

2. Portraits and figures

Portraits comprise a quarter of Hammershøi's output, making it possible to reconstruct his inner circle. The artists and musicians he associated with and who commissioned works from him or posed for him occupy a prominent place within that circle. Playing an instrument, the memory of a concert, listening or waiting became common pictorial motifs in the 19th century, in some cases explaining the introspective nature of Hammershøi's subjects, as with The Cellist. Portrait of Henry Bramsen. By making use of neutral backgrounds and removing elements that suggest a narrative, Hammershøi avoids distractions in order to present images suspended in time. Three young Women (1895) depicts Ida and her sisters-in-law, of whom Anna is shown reading a book.

3. Ida

Ida Ilsted, the sister of one of Hammershøi's fellow students, became a constant presence in the artist's paintings following their marriage in 1891, in some cases as an anonymous or idealised figure, and in others as accessible and vulnerable. The artist made use of double portraits of himself and Ida as a vehicle for experimenting with the relationship between figures: from the one painted in Paris in 1891 in which they are shown facing forward against a neutral background, with a hieratic quality similar to that of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures and portraits they had seen in the Louvre, to Two Figures, in which Hammershøi has his back turned, sitting on the other side of the table from Ida.

4. Interiors. Silent conversations

The genre that brought Hammershøi most success is presented in two groups: interiors with figures and unoccupied interiors. In both, the artist depicts the rooms of his homes, which also served as his studio and were his favourite subject. Between 1898 and 1909 he lived at 30 Strandgade in Copenhagen, where he produced more than 60 paintings. Some feature female figures, often with their backs to the viewer, reading or doing household tasks, such as Interior,Woman seen from behind (ca. 1904).

A large number of works are, however, completely devoid of figures. In 1907 Hammershøi explained: “The first interior I painted, if I'm not mistaken, was in Karl Madsen's house […] In any case, it was the first empty room I painted. I have always thought there was a great deal of beauty in such a room, even without people in it, perhaps precisely when there was no one there.” These empty rooms are often variations on the same view, in which Hammershøi modifies the placement of furniture or the angle at which the doors open. In Sunbeams or Sunlight. Dust Motes dancing in the Sunbeams. Strandgade 30 (1900) the painter confronts the viewer with a closed door and a window that does not allow for a view of the exterior. The light that enters through it falls onto the floor and the specks of dust seem to come to life.

5. Rhythmic landscapes

Outside the domestic sphere, Hammershøi depicted rural and urban spaces in which people are never present. Particularly notable are his views of the city of Copenhagen and its historic buildings, which he painted as deserted, with a stillness that differs from the reality of urban life, making use of a high viewpoint, as seen in Amalienborg Square, Copenhagen (1896) and The Asiatic Company Buildings, seen from Sankt Annæ Street, Copenhagen (1902).

Hammershøi also painted more modest types of buildings such as farmhouses, as well as rural landscapes during his summer stays in the countryside around Copenhagen. He depicted the flat, smooth and uniform Danish landscape with the same sense of solitude as his urban views, with a few trees and overlapping planes, as in Rain with Sun, Lake Gentofte (1903), and a subtle human presence on roads and in buildings.

Despite his frequent travels throughout Europe, Hammershøi painted few landscapes outside Denmark, although his cityscapes of London, executed during his stays in that city, are worthy of separate mention. Their misty atmosphere resonates with the Symbolist visions of some of his contemporaries, such as Fernand Khnopff.

6. Final years

In 1908, after leaving the apartment at Strandgade 30, Hammershøi returned to a study of the human figure in large formats through life-size nudes in pared-down, cool architectural settings or in intimate compositions in which he explored a more dynamic representation of the body.

Furthermore, after almost fifteen years without painting a self-portrait, in 1911 the artist embraced his identity as a painter and depicted himself brush in hand, looking directly at the viewer. Hammershøi’s paintings from this period also depict the apartment at Strandgade 25, where he lived from 1913 until his death in 1916.