Moonlight, Strandgade 30. Vilhelm Hammershøi. 1906.
A few seasons back, The Met curated a show about window paintings through the ages. And that is where I first saw this Hammershøi, which is part of the permanent collection.
Windows are both portals and barriers, creating a simultaneous sense of danger and safety, community and isolation.
While it may seem nothing is happening here, there is a tension inherent to the window, one that Hammershøi exploits even further by adding the closed door, inviting us to stay and to leave at the same time.
Bathing the entire vignette is the soft glow of moonlight, the night light of the forest, keeping elves and whatnøt away in the enchanted Danish kingdom, both frosty and warm, a chilled light, if you will, leaving everything mauve in its wake.
Hammershøi displays a masterful skill rendering all of this symbolism in this perfectly balanced painting of his very own apartment in Copenhagen, mystery and comfort dancing on a quiet tense tightrope in my mind when I encounter this work, thick with silence as it is.
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