Sørfjorden, Hardanger.

Holger Drachmann was a Danish poet, playwright, and painter — one of the most versatile figures of the Danish cultural world of the late nineteenth century, his dual identity as literary and visual artist giving his paintings a distinctive personal character. His 'Sørfjorden, Hardanger' (1886) depicts the Norwegian fjord that was among the most celebrated natural subjects in Scandinavian art — the Hardangerfjord's combination of dramatic cliff faces, deep water, and the distinctive light quality of the Norwegian fiord landscape attracted painters from throughout Europe.

Drachmann renders the Hardanger fiord with the poetic sensitivity that distinguished his painter's approach from more professional landscape specialists — the dramatic scale of the fjord walls, the quality of the deep fiord water's color, and the distinctive Norwegian light handled with personal engagement rather than systematic technique. His dual nature as poet and painter gave his landscapes a quality of subjective response to place that professional landscape painters sometimes traded for technical sophistication.