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Picturing a World

Calm waters

Surfing on the net (not the sea!) landed me yesterday at a sale at Christie’s, where this painting was up for auction. It’s just the sort of thing I had in mind for Charlie Post’s obsessively pursued subject of sea, horizon, and shore. The serendipity was also a reminder that browsing at gallery websites is a good way to see paintings that are not in museums. You never know what picture or object may inspire a story; and for historical fiction, it helps to look at a wide array of artifacts to get the feel of an era.

For the record, Arvid Claes William Johanson was born in Stockholm in 1862, studied in Dusseldorf, and settled in Paris, where he died in 1923. He won a Bronze Medal at the 1889 Salon in Paris and was dubbed a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 1899. (His name is sometimes spelled Johansson, but he signed his work as Johanson.

For his 1894 painting of Paris in the snow, click here
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