Sunday Morning in Grez. Sketch

Sunday Morning in Grez. Sketch (1882) documents Christian Krohg's time at the Grez-sur-Loing artists' colony, the small village south of Paris that became a gathering point for Scandinavian, American, and British painters in the 1870s–80s seeking an alternative to academic Paris. Grez attracted painters including Carl Larsson, Ernst Josephson, and later August Strindberg, who came for its quiet, non-touristic character and the quality of its riverside light. Krohg's 1882 visit was transformative: working in the open air among French-influenced colleagues loosened his handling and introduced the plein-air attention to light that distinguishes his subsequent Norwegian work. A panel sketch like this one — casual in format, labelled as a study — captures the colony's working method directly: small panels portable enough to be carried outdoors, worked quickly to capture transient light effects rather than composed as finished exhibition pieces. The National Museum of Art in Oslo holds this as evidence of the colony's importance in shaping Norwegian modernism.

Oil on panel executed as a plein-air sketch — small scale, rapid execution, paint applied in direct broken strokes to capture light effects rather than describe detail. The panel support enables thin, fluid paint that dries quickly enough for outdoor work. Composition is informal: the village setting glimpsed rather than formally organized.