Fifteen years for one night
On Harald Sohlberg and the winter night he could not stop painting.
In the spring of 1899 Harald Sohlberg went skiing in the Rondane mountains in central Norway. Something he saw there, on a cold night under a high moon, stayed with him for the rest of his working life.
He made sketches, drawings, prints and several painted versions of the same view. The best-known canvas, now in the National Museum in Oslo, was finished in 1914, fifteen years after the trip. Norwegians have more than once named it their national painting.
What moves me is not the fame but the patience. Fifteen years for one night. It is a good reminder that seeing something properly can take much longer than seeing it.
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