Helene Schjerfbeck, Self-Portrait,1912. Oil on canvas, 17 1/8 × 16 1/2 in. Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Yehia Eweis

To see an exhibition of an artist’s work without having seen any reproductions or read anything about them is rare. And to encounter the paintings—masterfully installed in a major museum—and find the work powerful, ingenious, even sublime, is akin to an explorer stumbling upon unmapped territory. The experience is so uncommon, you wish you could always see art for the first time, without any images or opinions clouding your view. Such was the feeling when I walked into the exhibition, “Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck,” at the Met. She has never been shown in the U.S. and has only previously exhibited in Sweden and her native Finland. The work is mesmerizing, requiring the slow and silent absorption all great art deserves.

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The paintings are mounted chronologically, allowing viewers to trace the evolution of the artist—a crucial lens through which to understand a life’s work. From her first self-portrait, painted at 22, to her final one at 83, a year before her death, Schjerfbeck’s development is a wonder to witness. It unfolds against the backdrop of recurring illness, a civil war, two world wars, and persistent self-doubt. She lived to paint.

© Observer