Morning

Gert Jynge studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts 1929–33 under the tutelage of Axel Revold. At the exhibition Eleven Young Painters at Kunstnerforbundet in 1933, Jynge, along with Erling Enger, Olav Strømme, Sigurd Winge, and Bjarne Engebret, displayed paintings inspired by German expressionism. This represented a conspicuous break from the prevailing French-Norwegian aesthetics that also Revold embodied.

Morning shows a young man in blue clothes lying in a meadow. A path separates the meadow from the trees, the mountains, and a bright sky. Perhaps the figure is a worker on a break, or young man in love, lost in reverie? With his right hand resting beneath his head, his left hand is tucked away in his pocket. His drawn-up left knee and jutting elbows give the figure a disjointed appearance. His face has been sketchily painted; it is mask-like and devoid of detail. His skin is dark. It might be that the sun has tinged it brown, or that Jynge lets his dark skin colour represent his own interest in primitive art, as the German artists often did in their paintings. The young man fills most of the picture. His blue clothes contrast sharply with the yellow, ochre, pink, orange, and green hues of the grass. The tufts of grass and the trees are pointy, painted quickly and rhythmically. The distinctive style of painting and non-naturalistic colouring bring to mind the Die Brücke artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whom Jynge was keenly interested in and whom he visited during a field trip to Germany in 1933. Jynge was a senior teacher at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry from 1957 to 1974.