Art historian Mikael Wivel explores the role of light in Danish art, with a focus on Niels Larsen Stevns, who was known in his own lifetime as the "Painter of Light". Stevns read light in both his figure compositions and his landscapes, where he increasingly understood it as a metaphysical phenomenon, both natural and divine.
The lecture also traces how people have reflected on light since antiquity, from philosophers, theologians and poets up to recent art. It is part of the autumn lecture series arranged with Vor Frue Kirke, and marks 350 years since Ole Rømer's discovery of the "hesitation of light".
