The life and times of the Scandinavian artists' colony who lived in Skagen on the Danish coast during the 1890s. Not so much a biographical account, rather a portrait of a way of life. The painters became famous for the way they used the light in their work, and this has also been mirrored in the cinematography.

After librarian Isolde attempts suicide, she leaves her politician husband for a younger student with a dark past. Isolde's former husband, however, has something else in mind for the young man.