Grey weather at Pipervika, Akershus 1922

Karl Edvard Diriks painted this scene of ‘Grey weather at Pipervika, Akershus’ with oil on canvas, though it feels like he’s painting with weather itself. Look at how he's built up the image from all these little dashes of colour, like he’s knitting the scene together. There's a beautiful softness in the surface, a haze of pinks and blues that make the harbor feel both close and distant. The way the paint is dabbed on, it gives everything a kind of shimmering quality. It’s as if the whole scene is vibrating with atmosphere. The sails of the ship have a certain presence too, they are solid and rich in colour. It’s like Diriks is inviting us to feel the damp air, hear the creak of the boats. Diriks’ contemporary Edvard Munch also explored similar themes of melancholic atmosphere, especially in his paintings of Oslofjord, so maybe this painting captures a shared sense of place and feeling. Ultimately, I think Diriks reminds us of the poetry in the everyday, the beauty in the grey.