Mrs Dora Lamm and Her Two Eldest Sons 1903

Carl Larsson painted Mrs Dora Lamm and Her Two Eldest Sons, but we don't know exactly when, although the piece is signed and dated 1905. The painting has this amazing looseness about it. Larsson’s brushwork is so confident. The colour here feels very Swedish to me, that gentle domesticity, particularly in the reds. Look at the way light moves over the surface of the mother’s dress, almost as if he’s suggesting a breeze is blowing through the room. And see the way the child in the foreground has that slightly unfocused gaze of small kids, capturing something very real about childhood. I'm reminded of Bonnard's paintings of his wife, Marthe, in the way that it is both portrait and still-life at the same time. Larsson captures a moment, a mood, the way light falls, all that stuff. It’s like life caught unawares. And maybe that’s the point; art is always a conversation.