This book is about Denmark's indisputably greatest painter, whose artistic genius is not even widely recognized by the Danish public, which has another Danish painter who is the Danish public's favorite.
The Danes have this dismissive idea that if something is Danish, no non-Dane will pay any attention to it. Well, the extremely influential elite of the international art "world" has become extremely interested in this Danish painter, with the result that world art auction prices for this Danish artist's paintings have rocketed through the roof. Danish museums cannot remotely afford to acquire this Danish artist's paintings, at world prices. Some of this artist's greatest masterpieces are now in foreign museums.
This book's major virtue is that it contains photos of a number of this artist's paintings I never knew existed. Although this Danish painter's total work product is numerically small, and for years I thought I had seen all of this artist's paintings, this book proves me wrong.
One puzzling feature of this otherwise comprehensive book is that it does not contain a photo of a excellent painting - it's a finished painting, not a preliminary study - by this painter that is in the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. I saw this painting with my own eyes. If fact, no Danish, no Scandinavian, and no other relevant publication I have ever seen has contained a photo of this painter's painting located in Toledo, Ohio. This omission is important because this painter's total numerical production is so small.
This artist's painting in the Toledo Museum of Art is from this painter's Italian sojourn, which produced paintings of this master's usual technical ability, but which did not match the overall quality of this artist's paintings in Denmark, of Denmark. This artist's paintings of Denmark are this painter's masterworks, his masterpieces - and some of the best of these masterworks are now in foreign art museums.