When Kunstnernes Hus now creates a commemorative exhibition of Rudolph Thygesen's art, it is with particular pleasure. Thygesen says that time passes, yes he is actually winning at that. More and more clearly, we see how he, as a painter, rakes high up in his time, and carries a message into a future. Thygesen belonged to the generation after Munch, and Munch's liberation of colour, so that it was no longer bound by any requirement for naturalistic illusion, is a prerequisite for Thygesen's art. In Paris he received a new stimulus through Matisse, so that his rich gift for color blossomed. Completely unconventional as he was, he created a picturesque world for himself, where his very distinctive and rich color vision dominated.

He was never tempted to become naturalistically reasonable, neither when it came to color or drawing. But the image itself had its inexorable logic and coherence. To the picture's own demands he bowed, - the only thing he respected. Thygesen was not a program artist with profound ideas and big slogans. It was with his eyes that he spoke and experienced the world, and it was life and nature in its sumptuous luxuriance that was his motif, in ever new variations. Here he unfolded. Here he created the fairy tale world that we can count ourselves happy to be able to follow him into.

Else Christie Kielland.