The Town, August Strindberg (1903)
We see a dark landscape dominated by a sky filled with monumental cloud formations in white, black and grey. The lower part of the painting comprises an expanse of water, and in the foreground a dark shore. In the background, on the horizon, we get a glimpse of a city. A dome rises up above the other buildings and is reflected in the water. If you look carefully, you can see that the artist applied the paint with a palette knife rather than brushes.
Strindberg, something of a polymath, was also a telegrapher, theosophist, painter, photographer and alchemist.
Painting and photography offered vehicles for his belief that chance played a crucial part in the creative process.
Strindberg's paintings were unique for their time, and went beyond those of his contemporaries for their radical lack of adherence to visual reality.
