Their content also helps to tell visual stories about their own local communities, perhaps in a better way than reading through sterile biographies or history books. The medium of watercolour has also received fluctuating interest from academics, but has always remained a respected art form within Northern Europe, but with most of these artists being skilled in a number of different mediums, their reputations have never fallen too far from prominence. Many find this blend of impressionism, realism and personal flair to have left behind some thoroughly charming artworks from across 19th century Europe, with other impressive exponents also found within the US and Russia.

There has been a growing appreciation of artists such as Zorn in recent years and this has also led to a greater focus on related artists' work, such as John Singer Sargent, Joaquín Sorolla and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

As his reputation reached extraordinary levels, he would receive a number of high profile commissioned portraits, which boosted his connections within the art world and beyond. There was rarely any message in his work, that some academics would wish to complain about, but he simply appreciated the aesthetic beauty of the different snapshots of life which dominate his oeuvre. In other scenes he will capture reclining women within brightly-lit natural settings, such as by a river or lake. Midsummer Dance is a great example of this, where several local couples dance playfully outdoors, whilst wearing their traditional clothing. There was a purity to these characters and an honesty to their lives that many today will be attracted to.

He captured elegant settings of the upper classes along with more personal depictions of young women bathing or enjoying their leisure time in other ways. It was the content as much as the style which draws an appreciation to Zorn's paintings today. Zorn struck a balance which is starting to regain its popularity with those who appreciate scenes of this charming period, but without too much stringent, academic styling. It bears a similarity to Impressionism, in that sense, where an artist is beginning the movement towards all the extraordinary twists of reality that came in the mid to late 20th century. This technique would be criticised by previous generations as lazy or incomplete, but times had changed and the art followers of this period understood that he was actually using expressive touches that went beyond just what one could see. Whilst his brushwork was faithful to the scenes that Zorn was viewing, he did tend to leave a looseness which allows an element of imagination to be used by the viewer.

Anders Zorn by Olaf Danielson