Vilhem Hammershøi is an artist of limited range. Most of the paintings in this exhibition depict his Copenhagen apartment. They are serene, beautiful paintings of simple interiors, which bring to mind seventeenth century Dutch artists like Vermeer and Maes, but stripped of narrative and pared down to a limited range of colour and tone, with a minimal number of props.

‘Interior with Punchbowl’, 1904, focuses on a punchbowl, just away from the centre of the painting, framed against an expanse of bare wall in an austere dining room. The chairs are the actors in this quiet drama, implying human presence by their slightly haphazard arrangement. They contrast with the precise crease pressed into a tablecloth, which flutters in an imagined breeze. Hammershøi said he was primarily attracted to subjects by the lines. This painting clearly shows his artistry in manipulating the lines he saw; the whole composition is at a slight angle away from the horizontal, which reinforces our unease.

Hammershøi’s world is an eerie place. Windows are barriers rather than links with the outside world. Open doors reveal closed spaces. The parsimonious interiors deny us the clues needed to understand the relations between objects in space; figures seem to float in uncertain space, although the ambiguity is clearly deliberate. Empty streets and grey days are foreboding.

Seeing these paintings together brings out Hammershøi’s gifts as a colourist. ‘Interior, Strandgade 30’, 1899, is an unusually flamboyant example. The sunlight gives the polished tabletop a purple sheen. The large table is entirely bare, simply a virtuoso depiction of illuminated wood. Paint is scribbled onto canvas, establishing an interplay of colour and texture that holds our attention.

Other paintings depict depopulated streets, including some large paintings of Copenhagen landmarks and unusual views of the British Museum. Paintings such as ‘The Asiatic Company Buildings’, 1902 show Hammershøi’s abilities extended to larger scenes, which have a powerful and bleak presence. The landscapes and portraits provide a rounded view of Hammershøi’s achievement, but his talent is most apparent in the interiors for which he is most celebrated.

Hammershøi’s paintings do not fit easily into art history’s narrative. He lived quietly in Copenhagen in the late nineteenth century and wasn’t part of a great movement. His art is utterly different from the grandiloquent styles of the fin-de-siecle stars. Hammershøi painted his punchbowl in 1904; in that year Henri Matisse was painting ‘Luxe, Calme et Volupté’, a riotous blast of colour heralding the fauves, the first great modern movement. People have tried to fit Hammershøi into categories, and he is often described as a symbolist. But these paintings resist incorporation; Hammershøi stood alone and we should not try to reduce him to an addendum to a movement. He worked within his limitations, and was amply successful on those terms.

This exhibition succeeds as being more than the sum of its parts, which is surprising given the similarity of the parts. They are shown is the Royal Academy’s Sackler Wing, an ugly little suite of rooms, but just about the ideal size for an exhibition; just large enough to sate the appetite without causing indigestion.

‘Sunbeams or Sunshine. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams’, 1900 Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen (Photo Pernille Klemp)

The wall text is the strangest I’ve seen. The only thing you’re told about the paintings is where they were exhibited during Hammershøi’s lifetime. ‘Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams’ (1900), we are told, was:

First shown in 1905 in a solo exhibit in Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. Subsequently exhibited outside Denmark in Rome (Esposizione Internazionale; 1911), in New York, Buffalo, Toledo, Chicago and Boston (1912-13) and Malmö (1914).

And that is all that is said about one of the most charming and intriguing things in the exhibition. This pointless trivia is redeemed by intelligent and articulate room labels, although they try too hard to fit his work into a narrative of artistic development when in fact he changed little from his early maturity to his premature death.

Reviews of this exhibition have brought the clichés out in force. We are told that Vilhem Hammershøi is a forgotten artist rediscovered, and that the exhibition a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is said about so many exhibitions it is scarcely worth mentioning, except insofar as it is so conspicuously false in Hammershøi’s case. In fact he has been given his due for at least three decades, and has been the focus of many exhibitions (1976, 1981, 1983, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006 – not even counting those included in general shows of Danish and Scandinavian art). Hammershøi will never be a household name, partly because he is not truly of the first rank, and partly because he was not part of a famous movement. But we can enjoy him in his own terms, and in this exhibition he really shines.

Till 7 September 2008