earliest French pictures, done in 1879, is entitled Carting
Snow Along the Seine. Yet it was not until he exhibited
Ferme à Venoix at the Salon of 1881 that he attracted
general attention. He received that year, at the same time
as Kröyer, one of the gold medals of the Salon; the paint-
ing was bought by the French government, and until the
outbreak of the war hung in the Museum at Rheims.

It was natural that Skredsvig, poetical and idyllic of
temperament, should become fond of Corot and Millet.
The soft grey keynote in his color is probably owing in large
part to Corot. Early in his career he made a specialty of
painting animals, preferably in landscapes, together with
the herdsmen. One of his pictures from this period is
October Morning in Grez, now in the National Gallery.
The canvas gives rather a French effect by reason of its flat
French landscape beneath a milky sky, the huge Norman
horses, and the boy on horseback meeting the shepherd girl
in the midst of her flock, the boy in his wide, blue blouse and
the girl in her Millet capuchon. Not the least considerable
part of the French impression is due to the pale grey Salon
tone used in painting the picture.

Skredsvig's masterpiece is called Ballade. It was
executed after his return from France, and is now in a
private gallery near Christiania. The artist once saw three
of the sturdy horses of Northern France standing saddled
outside a gate on a grey, cold, windy day in autumn, and was
struck by their lonely, foresaken appearance. He recalled
the ballad refrain about the riders who went forth to battle
and whose coursers came home bloody and with emptied
saddles; and he gave expression to his sentiments in this
narrative painting with the animals deserted in storm and
mire on the highway as a theme.

When Skredsvig returned to Norway in 1884 after his
French apprenticeship and his foreign triumphs, it was not
long before the rustic lyricist in him dominated the Paris
artist. Now that he was sure of himself, he carried his
art back to the soil from which he sprang, to the memories
of his childhood, and to rural life. One of his best pictures

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