Fackelblomster I (Torch Flower I)

August Strindberg travelled to Dalarö in the Stockholm archipelago in May 1892, staying through the summer. In the midst of his divorce from his first wife Siri von Essen, Strindberg found his finances strained, and he lived chaotically during this period, which significantly affected his literary production. Instead, he found himself inspired by the landscape, and painted some 30 pictures during this time, his first serious return to painting since some youthful attempts in the 1870s. The first paintings he did during his sojourn were small and painted on whatever material he could find to hand, including book covers and cardboard. The motifs are inspired by the sea and the landscape of the archipelago but filtered through the lens of Strindberg's own endlessly creative mind. At the end of May he wrote to his friend and colleague Richard Bergh, 'I have a few paintings to show you which I painted from imagination. I have invented a new style which I have named 'Skogssnufvism'. It is based on spontaneity, to paint nature not as it is but to paint nature as a process of creation.'

The present work is a smaller variation of the work illustrated in G. Söderström, Strindbergs måleri, Malmö 1972, p. 105, pl. V. The theme of a flower or flowers on a beach is a recurring one for the artist during this period.