He did some fine, if bleak, landscapes too, but it was the interiors that sold in his lifetime, and he is best remembered for paintings of the sun shining through curtainless window-panes, casting shadows on carpetless floors.

ECONOMIST: The mysterious paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi

The curtainless windows were rectangles of electric-blue sky that turned to gray and then normal daylight as the patients rose and slowly, in their thin striped cotton robes, began wandering down the corridor that led into the common room.

NEWYORKER: The Reptile Garden