Station: [28] Isaac Grünewald: "From the Bathing Beach", 1917


The Swedish expressionist Isaac Hirsch Grünewald first studied in Stockholm and then went to Paris in 1908 to learn the techniques of expressionist painting at the Académie Matisse. Once provocative due its greatly reduced forms, his art was very much inspired by Matisse, Picasso and Léger.

From the Bathing Beach was painted in 1917 when Grünewald and his family spent a holiday on the West Jutlandic island of Fanø. The playful treatment of the stereotypical pictorial motifs clearly reflect his experiences as a set designer and his artistic training in France. In the foreground, a male nude is sitting on a dune sunbathing. A handful of bathers romp around on the stretch of beach behind him. From the left, the large sail of a yacht protrudes into the picture. Another sailboat is placed in front of the horizon. A high shoreline drawn across the background underscores the peacefulness and seclusion of the beach scenery. By treating the different parts of the picture as discrete and reducing the figures to their contours, the beach fun is presented as innocuous, cheerful togetherness.