'Glowing Sun, truly Italian Sunshine'. The Skagen Painters' New Grand Tour to Italy 1870s-1880s.

Presentation by Mette Harbo Lehmann, postdoc, Aarhus University and museum curator at Skagens Museer.

A majority of the Scandinavian painters who visited the artists’ colony in Skagen, Denmark’s northernmost point, in the late 19th century also traveled to Italy, either before or after their stays in Skagen. However, their travel patterns differed from those of the previous generation of artists. It was a new era, they were representatives of the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavia, and their artistic production was driven by different aims than those of the Romantic artists who came before them. They were naturalists and sought to depict a more authentic image of how the world appeared by painting directly in front of their subjects.  

I will be speaking about this new type of journey to Italy undertaken by the Skagen painters, and how it differed from the previous generation's Grand Tour."