[简答题]Vilhelm Hammershoi has been a well-kept secret since his death in 1916． All his best- known paintings are of household interiors that are drained of color and tell no stories. 46． His windows cannot be seen through, his doors cannot be opened and the figures produce no element of vitality into the rooms. Hammershoi is defiantly inscrutable; the mood is melancholic and enigmatic, but the paintings are oddly compelling. Quite why, no one seems sure.
Of the 71 paintings in a new exhibition in London, 21 come from his native Copenhagen, 15 from other Scandinavian collections and 20 from private collections, principally Danish. Hammershoi’s focus was not as narrow as this show might suggest, but to see his nudes it is necessary to visit the Statens Museum for Kunst in Denmark. He did some fine, if bleak, landscapes too, but it was the interiors that sold in his lifetime, and he is best remembered for paintings of the sun shining through curtainless window-panes, casting