Solar Eclipse

A total solar eclipse crosses a Swedish village. Nordenberg painted the full range of human response to celestial fear: an old woman kneeling in prayer, a farmer pointing his hat at the sun, a child hiding in her mother's skirts, a scientist consulting an almanac. The great Swedish total eclipse of 28 July 1851 crossed southern Sweden that year; Nordenberg was 29 and had recently returned from studying in Düsseldorf. He painted the eclipse not as astronomy but as anthropology — every person's face is a different theory of what is happening. Now at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Now at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm @nationalmuseumswe