![Harald Giersing - The Judgement of Paris [1909]](http://farm1.staticflickr.com/758/21617206629_939d224f04_o.jpg)
Harald Giersing (Copenhagen, April 24, 1881 - Copenhagen, January 15, 1927) was a Danish painter. Giersing, who died at the early arge of 45, was driven by a desire to concentrate on change and beauty. Unable to find support in religion, he adopted modernism as an existential approach as to how art could fill the void for those without faith in God. After a period during which he concentrated on portraits and on the female figure, from about 1912 he took a special interest in painting forests. For Giersing, the 1920s did not bring the level of success he might have hoped for. After the war, Copenhagen lost many of its attractions for artists who moved to other parts of Europe. He died of pneumonia on January 15, 1927.
[National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen - Oil on cardboard, 121.5 x 149 cm]