Nils Kreuger

Nils Kreuger's art often revolves around the relationship between humans and animals. From the Parisian motifs of the 1880s, where the newly established boulevards of the inner city or suburbs are depicted with horse-drawn carriages driven by coachmen, to the motifs created in Varberg featuring Halland farmers plowing, humans and animals are portrayed in close connection with each other.

However, over time, Kreuger seems to increasingly abandon humans in his motifs and instead seeks a landscape solely populated by animals in complete freedom. Kreuger found this environment on Öland, where he favored motifs depicting horses, cows, and sheep in total liberty on the Alvaret or in the vicinity of Borgholm. Kreuger described his newfound paradise in the following way in a letter to his fellow artist and friend Karl Nordström:

"However, it is very beautiful here and then it may well be a bit dirty at the farmers'. The village is so picturesque, beautifully situated on the slope towards Kalmarsund, so you see the straw roofs on the barns against the blue waters of the sound and against the greening, fading in the distance, clouds...".

After the turn of the century, Kreuger's painting assumes ever greater proportions, while one can sense a compositional shift where nature moves into the background and the depicted animals are placed close to the picture plane, creating a monumental effect.

In the catalog number, Kreuger's love for the untouched Swedish nature and the untamed horses in full freedom is clearly evident.