Modern Art & Design Presents Carl Kylberg

In his paintings, Kylberg sought to express the spiritual, the universal and the universal human. In his diaries, he regularly comments on his paintings and there you can find the key that illuminates his deep-thinking artistry. His scenography contained the ideas of human destiny as a journey, the ship approaching land with the destinies of the people on board or setting off into the great wide sea and meeting an unexpected fate.

Kylberg is difficult to place within any specific artistic ‘-ism’. Vincent van Gogh has had a significant influence on Kylberg's art through his liberating technique. To some extent, Kylberg's work can be compared to William Turner's, as both obviously unite man and nature. A common denominator between Turner and Kylberg is the sun. It is an obvious part of reality and, through its many colour changes, it also becomes a gateway to something deeper and more abstract.

The painting ”Afton i en stilla vik” was painted in 1938. During the 1930s, Kylberg had developed his mature style, with a stronger expression and more intense colours. The subject matter is typical of Kylberg, and many of his seascapes were painted during summer stays in the Danish town of Aalgarde in 1936-37. The frame is a typical bronzed ‘Kylbergram’ (Kyllbergframe), made by his wife Ruth Kylberg, who carved and planed the rustic profile.

Kylberg believed that colour was fundamental to authentic and meaningful painting. He built his pictures with colour, but did not see himself as an expressionist. He distanced himself from the brutal colours and grotesque exaggerations of the expressionists. Instead, he used the world around him and the landscape as a means to reach deeper emotions and communicate with the viewer. As he put it: ‘The essence of painting is nothing but to express what is visible in the soul, not to paint houses and superficial events...’