Dancing Fairies
August Malmström, 1866
Dancing Fairies, by the Swedish painter August Malmström, shows a group of fairies dancing above the water in a moonlit landscape. One of them leans over the surface to catch sight of her own reflection, a gesture that gives the scene a dreamlike and quietly tense mood. The morning mist seems to turn into female figures, as if they were spirits of an untamed, wild nature.
The image draws on Scandinavian folklore, where fairies, descended from the hidden beings of Norse mythology, were seen as delicate yet capricious, quick to take offence if not treated well. Popular tales warned of their danger to anyone who handled them carelessly, and Romantic paintings often pictured them as fair-haired, dressed in white and fearsome when offended.
Malmström, a professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, was among the Swedish artists who sought to create a national Swedish art. This work, widely recognised in its home country, reflects that aim of uniting myth, popular tradition and the local landscape.
- Painter
- August Malmström
- Date
- 1866
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 90 × 149 cm
- Museum
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
- Genre
- landscape painting
- Depicts
- tree
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