Jóhannes Kjarval

(real surname Sveinsson). Born Oct. 15, 1885, in Efri-Ey. Icelandic painter.

Kjarval, the son of a farmer, studied at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1913 to 1917. He visited a number of European countries. An outstanding representative of the national-romantic school of Icelandic landscape painting, Kjarval evokes the power of mountain massifs and the vibrant colorfulness of Iceland’s marshy plains. He often fills his multicolored panoramic landscapes with symbolic elements; the figures are generally characters from fairy tales. Kjarval’s portraits capture the characteristic national types.