Music of Colour
When I grew up it was common to find prints of Harriet Backer (1845-1932) in people’s homes; the art of this gifted impressionist had penetrated national sensibility, had become national property. I missed the exhibition dedicated to her work at the National Museum in Oslo this winter, unfortunately. The website remains a good resource, though I suspect Backer, of whom her friend Hulda Garborg said, ‘I have never known a more contented or happier artistic soul’, would have liked to be remembered more as an artist in her own right, less as a woman breaking gender stereotypes. The exhibition’s didactic material is a sterling example of our time’s myopia, a distinct disadvantage when it comes to looking at pictures. In Oslo the show was called ‘Every Atom is Colour’. When it removes to the Musée d’Orsay in the autumn it will be called ‘La Musique des couleurs’. A happier choice. Harriet’s sister Agathe, a pupil of Liszt’s, was a composer of note; music recurs as a visual motif in Harriet’s painted interiors. More essentially, do not her very colours sing? And do we not pick up, still, a note of contentedness that has become strangely unfamiliar to us?
