Viggo Johansen – the Master of Moods
A homely interior mood with the glow of a lamplight on a family’s everyday life and celebrations. Viggo Johansen (1851-1935) is the artist among the Skagen painters most associated with and recognized for depicting life at home. As a true romantic with a distinct sense of moods, he continued in the footsteps of the Danish Golden Age by maintaining the beautiful and picturesque in intimate and quiet interior paintings with primarily his wife and children going about their daily errands. His motifs were later expanded to also include the landscapes of Skagen with poetic and luminous colours inspired by French Impressionism as well as portraits seen in a realistic perspective.
“The new era had begun. The relationship between Romanticism and Realism, the eternal theme in our discussions back then. And the victor was Realism, Naturalism; there was no mercy for the others.”
Viggo Johansen
At the age of 17, he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, specializing in the prestigious figure painting. He never completed his studies and instead went to Skagen in 1875 at the urging of his fellow student, Michael Ancher. Here Viggo Johansen met Martha Møller, cousin of Anna Ancher, whom he married in 1880. The couple spent many summers at Skagen during the 1880s with their growing family of children. In Copenhagen, Viggo Johansen taught at the Danish art schools De Frie Studieskoler (The Free Schools of Studies), the Women’s Art School at the Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1906-1920 as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts.
As a true master of moods Viggo Johansen’s interior paintings are important masterpieces of Danish art. His probably most famous painting is “Silent Night” from 1891 (The Hirschsprung Collection), while “An Evening Party in the Artist’s Home” from 1899 (The National Gallery of Denmark) is also an icon of the genre. In recent times, he has been reinterpreted as a true Skagen painter, which he also was to a great extent. This aspect of his oeuvre has been highlighted with, for instance, the exhibition “Viggo Johansen – Landscape Studies”, which was shown in 2018-2019 at the Art Museums of Skagen and in 2019 at The Nivaagaard Collection.