'A lover of light': in 1912, a French critic used these words to
describe the great Danish painter Peder Severin Kroyer, who had close
ties to the French art scene for more than two decades. Kroyer first
visited Paris in 1877, and his many letters clearly show the impact
French art had on Kroyer's own development as a painter, on the artists'
colony in Skagen, and on Danish art history in general. In Kroyer and
Paris. French Connections and Nordic Colours, art historians Mette
Harbo Lehmann and Dominique Lobstein describe Kroyer's artistic
development from the Golden Age tradition favoured by the Danish academy
to Naturalism and the Modern Breakthrough. They show how inspiration
from France can be traced in his painting technique and his open-air
paintings from Skagen, revealing how French Naturalism made its mark on
Kroyer's distinctive style.