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Vilhelm Hammershoi
Until Sep 7
This event has finished
Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London, W1J OBD
Rating:
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Double Portrait, 1898. ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Photo Ole Hein Pedersen
By Ossian Ward

Posted: Fri Aug 8
A blast of cold air-con hits you at the door and an equally icy atmosphere follows you all the way round ‘The Poetry of Silence’, the first London retrospective for this turn-of-the-last-century Danish artist. Although attributing frostiness, melancholia and emotional detachment to a Scandinavian painter might well smack of the old Brits-drink-warm-beer treatment, this reclusive figure did at least manage to break free from national constraints by exhibiting widely, both in Paris and at the 1903 Venice Biennale. Hammershøi’s preferred status as outsider is echoed in his poignant portraits, in which the sitters (usually his wife or sister) resolutely turn their backs to the world. The lack of facial contact is disturbing and dehumanising at first, but they soon soften you up with tender evocations of how a person can be just as vividly described by a few soft hairs on the nape of the neck or by a curl of hair falling out of place.

This hint of sensuality isn’t to imply that Hammershøi was anything other than a repressed existentialist in the mould of fellow Dane Søren Kierkegaard. You need only look at the spartan views of the Hammershøi apartment in Copenhagen to feel that chill go down your spine again. His near-monochromatic palette perfectly suits the empty easels, doors left ajar and glowing windowpanes that strengthen the sense that there’s a ghost hiding in these rooms. If ever there was an exhibition to cool you off on a hot summer’s day, this is it.

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Details
Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London, W1J OBD
, UK
020 7300 8000
Category: Art museums & institutions
Times: Daily 10am-6pm (last admission 5.30pm), Fri until 10pm (last admission 9.30pm)
Price: £8, 60 years and over, registered disabled £7, NUS £6, 12-18 years, income support £3, seven years and under free
Tube: Piccadilly Circus