What emotions is this person feeling?
Nanna Krogh, Sick Girl
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Bright emotions
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Not at all Extremely
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Quiet emotions
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Not at all Extremely
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Heavy emotions
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Not at all Extremely
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Sombre emotions
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Not at all Extremely
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Nanna Krogh, Sick Girl
Date
1880–1881
Description
Creator of the image: Christian Krohg
Date of the image creation: 1880–1881
Medium of the image: Oil on wooden board
Person depicted: Nanna Krohg
The painting from which this image is taken, Sick Girl, is considered one of Christian Krohg’s finest artworks. In this starkly realistic painting, Krohg portrays his sister who died of tuberculosis. Krohg uses a dull palette to render this detailed depiction of the pale, sickly flesh and dim fabrics. The most striking feature of this fully illuminated deathbed scene is the girl’s grim expression; a piecing gaze locks onto the viewer.
Christian Krohg (1852–1925) was a Norwegian naturalist painter, writer and journalist. Drawing inspiration from the realists, Krohg was compelled to portray everyday life, often its less socially upstanding side: fishermen, workers, homeless people, and prostitutes. His 1886 novel Albertine, which dealt with prostitution and corruption, caused much controversy and was confiscated by police. Krohg went on to found a Bohemian journal and work as a journalist, before becoming a professor director of the Norwegian Academy of the Arts until his death in 1925.
For a curious contrast, see Edvard Munch’s painting Sick Child (1886). A student of Krohg, Munch also lost a sister and a mother to tuberculosis. The disease took a heavy toll on nineteenth-century Scandinavia. Munch’s painting is a blizzard of brushstrokes that captures a very different emotional response to Krohg’s loss of a sibling.
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Choose different variables below, and see the patterns of response reflected in the circle of emotion above. Your responses are the coloured wedges. Others' responses are averaged in the spider graph of lines and dots.
