Strindberg was an amateur painter. He understood that creating some art is a major form of expression of the feelings and considered that it must provide an ecstatic pleasure to the author.
In 1893, he painted landscapes where sky and sea form a continuity without horizon. He positioned his colors with a knife by scars.
In 1894, his tribulations led him with his very young pregnant wife in a hut in Dornach, in the upper valley of the Danube. Waiting for the childbirth, he decorated this home by seven paintings of various subjects.
The local scenery is spectacular. Alplandskap, oil on panel 72 x 51 cm, is one of the paintings made for the house at Dornach. As in the maritime scenes, the horizon disappears in the color transition between mountains and clouds. The swirling motion of the knife reminds the starry sky of van Gogh. Alplandskap was sold for £ 2.1 million including premium by Sotheby's on June 27, 2007.
Strindberg is aware that his art is totally new. The title is only a guide, and the artwork is a tour de force that expresses both the external environment and the inner torment of the artist. He outlined the theory of his creations as Art fortuit (in French, meaning chance art), which opens the way for the much later role of emotion in abstract art and to the abstract landscapes by Zao Wou-ki.
On December 3 in Stockholm, Bukowskis sells Stormlandskap, painting on paper 32 x 24 cm mounted on panel, lot 689 estimated SEK 5M. Stormlandskap was painted in Paris in October 1894, probably in order to prove his theories to a friend, and it is now rediscovered. The design is very similar to Alplandskap, but with a greater tendency to destroy the figurative.
If Strindberg had been a professional artist, he could have shaken forever the artistic theories. Kandinsky did it fifteen years later in Murnau.
I invite you to play the video shared by Bukowskis :