You didn’t have to travel far in 1887 before you left the city of Oslo, and reached the countryside around it. Following yesterday’s paintings of the centre, today I show a selection of those from nearby.

To remind you, this map shows the extent of the city of Christiania in 1887.

Peder Balke’s view of Frognerkilen and Bygdøy seen from Skillebekk painted in about 1855 comes as a surprise, as he’s known today for his dramatic coastal views of north Norway, up to North Cape, its most northerly point on the mainland. This less rugged view is from the south-west suburb of Skillebekk looking to the south-west to the island of Bygdøy, with its grand neo-Gothic castellated mansion of Oscarshall, now a museum.

Georg Fredrik Nielsen Strømdal’s panoramic view of Kristiania seen from Egeberg from 1889 is one of the finest of the city at the time. This looks to the west from a hill at Egeberg to the south-east of the city. The mouth of the Loelva River is in the foreground, and behind it the port and industrial buildings of Bispevika and Bjørvika. In the right distance is the Royal Palace, with Oscarshall further to the left.

In the summer of 1886, Eilif Peterssen painted on Fleskum Farm in Bærum, now an affluent suburb to the west of Oslo, with Harriet Backer, Kitty Kielland, and others. One evening he started work on his view of the local lake, Dæhlivannet, which became one of his greatest landscape works, Summer Night (1886).

The following year, he took that same view, added some flowers, and worked in a nude to produce his Nocturne (1887), which was also widely acclaimed. The contrast in finish is marked, with the earlier painting crisp in its detail, while this version is more painterly.

Peter Nicolai Arbo, better known for his paintings of Nordic myth, is unusually painterly in this landscape of a View of Frognerslot from Skovveien (1890). This old manor house is set in a Baroque garden that now forms part of Oslo’s largest park.

Eilif Peterssen returned to Bærum in the summer of 1891, when he painted the Impressionist Sunshine, Kalvøya (1891), compared by the critics to the paintings of Berthe Morisot.

By 1916, Aksel Waldemar Johannessen and his family were spending their summers in a rented house in Asker, a rural area just outside Oslo that was already popular with Norwegian artists including Harriet Backer.

Johannessen’s Rain (1915-16) is an evocative painting of a thoroughly wet day there. Asker is on the bank of Oslo Fjord, and ideal for family coastal sailing, and walking.

His Landøen in Asker (1916) is a view of part of the dissected coastline near Asker, south-west from the city, down Oslofjord.

The Artist’s Summer House in Asker (1916) shows their rented property, with the artist’s wife Anna making her way up its steps.

The last brushstroke has to be Edvard Munch’s.

Munch returned to painting landscapes after the First World War. Starry Night (1922–24) is one of the most distinctive of these, showing the woods and snow-covered hills outside the distant city of Oslo.