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The Sunlight
Ture Nikolaus Cederström (Swedish, 1843–1924)
1890s
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Unframed: 47 x 33.5 cm (18 1/2 x 13 3/16 in.)
- Culture
- Sweden, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Frances W. Ingalls Trust
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Monastic life was a popular subject among painters working in Munich, where Ture Nikolaus Cederström spent much of his career. The monk seen here is immersed in thought, looking pensively through a window and using his finger to hold his place in a book. Such paintings were popular for the access they provided to private life within monasteries, which were closed to the public. The monk’s casual pose and absorption in the view provide an approachable vision of religion, showing the figure’s longing for the outside world.
