Harriet Backer in her inner strengths – Libération

Between homes, rural landscapes and churches, the exhibition “The Music of Colors” at the Musée d’Orsay allows us to understand the vibrant work of the Norwegian painter, a discreet pioneer in the recognition of women in art.

One of the first paintings in the unexpected monograph that the Musée d’Orsay devotes to the Norwegian painter Harriet Backer (1845-1932) seems to set the tone for the entire work and for everything that will follow in the next dozen or so rooms. It has the hushed charm of genre scenes. A woman elegantly dressed in a long blue dress, seated on an armchair of the same blue, sews or embroiders, her eyes fixed on the work. Entirely busy with her task, she seems not to notice the painter standing in front of her and therefore makes fun of the viewer. She doesn’t pose. She sews and wants to be left alone. Blue interior (1883) is only half a portrait. The woman, absorbed in her thoughts, is also absorbed by her living room, first by this blue armchair with which her dress blends in, then these empty chairs which face her, then this secretary, peach and ocher color, which occupies the center of the painting, and, behind it, this wall marbled with yellow and blue, on which a seascape hangs. Harriet Backer only paints people in the company of things from home and daylight or lamps.

Cozy, soft painting

She claims to only want “painting interiors, tormenting myself with perspectives, beating myself with chair legs. As soon as I enter a room with blue and red colors on rustic furniture or matte and glossy walls, where the light reflected by the trees and the sky enters through a window or a door, I quickly find myself