Greenland Eskimos

GREENLAND ESKIMOS: A Greenlandic landscape with a house and two Inuits preparing food over the fire, signed Emanuel A. Petersen. Oil on canvas, measures 14.5 x 20.8 inches (37×53 cm), a few minor peelings, crackling, circa 1920s.

Emanuel A. Petersen (1894-1948) is famous as a "Grønlands-maler", painting in a romantic style at a time when photography was already documenting the landscape. He aimed at a beautification, a certain perception of harmony, showing nature, people and dwellings from a distance; he does not share in the life of the scene but records and reproduces. Petersen's view was not one from the inside out, but from the outside in. His gaze was mostly concerned with a pictorial and natural beauty, the beauty of colours and of light.