August Strindberg only painted landscapes – often shores and seascapes from the Stockholm archipelago. He liked to depict stormy seas with foaming waves, but here the water is calm. In his autobiographical novel The Son of a Servant, Strindberg writes that ‘one should give expression to one’s inner feelings and not depict mere sticks and stones’. He managed to create something original as both a writer and an artist, but recognition of and real interest in his painting would not come until the 1960s, long after his death.