As was discussed in the comments on my recent post about Thomas Fearnley, the Scandinavian countries seem to have produced a disproportionately high number of wonderful landscape painters.
Johan Krouthén was a Swedish painter active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm at the same time as Anders Zorn, and quit at the same time in a rejection of the institution’s restrictive policies.
Krouthén traveled to Paris and was exposed to the Impressionist avant-guarde there, and became acquainted with other Scandinavian painters while painting for a time in the art colony at Skagen in Denmark.
His subjects over time included room interiors, portraits and figures, but it is his landscapes for which he is best known. They are direct, clear observations of landscape elements and the effects of light, often with hight chroma passages but without the overt broken color of Impressionism.
The good news is that there are a large number of images of Krouthén’s paintings available on line; though many of those are unfortunately of less than desired quality. Those that are well reproduced, however, are worth searching out amid the others.
The largest selection I’ve found is on The Athenaeum, with over 400 images available. The largest reproductions are on the Bukowski’s auction site.
There is a dedicated site for Krouthén, www.johan-krouthen.se, maintained by Hans Nilsson, a professor of History at Linkoping University. The site is in Swedish, but it’s easy enough to navigate. The third navigation link, “Malningar”, translates as “Paintings” and there are sub-sections for time periods.
I’ve listed other resources below.
