Inspired by William Turner's paintings in London, Swedish writer August Strindberg used a mysterious approach to create an almost undecipherable painting. In Brettell's Modern Art, this work falls into the category of Anti-Iconography, a subject that's supposed to be without interpretation, for it would strip the painting of its purpose as a painting.

Without the need to try and verbally understand this work, "the visual gain greater autonomy from words." View art as it is. Don't spend time searching for a meaning, but rather let a meaning come to you...or not.

The subject is not what makes a painting art, it's the representation of that subject. The enforced meaninglessness of anti-iconography makes it difficult for people to understand why it's a subject in the first place. It serves as a reminder to people that not everything has to have an intention.

Strindberg took a literary-charged subject and stripped it of its narrative. Instead of its representation as a calm or peaceful symbol, The Wave VII is simply a painting. The artist can intensify a subject that he denies.