Danza di mezza estate

Zorn had made his name and his money painting society portraits across Europe and America, and in 1896 he moved back to Mora, the small town in the Dalarna region of Sweden where he grew up. This is one of the first things he painted there. It shows a midsummer night dance, the celebration around the longest day of the year, when the northern sky barely goes dark. He keeps the maypole and its little Swedish flag off to the side and gives the middle of the canvas to a couple swept up in the dancing, lit by that pale, lingering summer dusk. Ordinary villagers in folk dress, painted with real fondness. Sweden took to it quickly, and it has been treated as a national treasure ever since, rarely allowed to leave the country.