| Twilight | |
| Artist: | Odd Nerdrum |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Medium: | Oil on canvas |
| Height Metric: | 198 |
| Width Metric: | 260 |
| Metric Unit: | cm |
| Imperial Unit: | in |
| Museum: | Private collection |
Twilight is a 1981 painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. It depicts a woman defecating in a forest clearing. Nerdrum presented the painting as a "tribute to the natural, the true human being whom we all fear".[1]
The painting was rejected by Høstutstillingen in 1981, along with all other submissions in a similar figurative style, which created media reactions in Norway. According to the jury president Per Kleiva, it was rejected solely because of a lack of technical accomplishment, and not because the subject was seen as controversial. It was instead exhibited at the gallery Blomqvist Kunsthandel, together with rejected paintings by other artists.[2]
It was reviewed in Aftenposten, where the critic described it as shocking and unappetizing. Nerdrum replied: "I certainly don't mean to shock, but I don't want to conceal any part of reality."[3]
Joseph Beuys, who had been Nerdrum's teacher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, described Twilight as "possibly the most radical" painting he knew of.[4] Twilight has been described as the start of a new course in Nerdrum's oeuvre, where he abandoned the political and social themes that had dominated his works in the 1970s.[5]