A young woman, identified by the title as Munch's youngest sister Inger, sits in a quiet pose, a straw hat in her hands, on a large granite rock and holds her head in profile.

[3] Ulrich Bischoff suggests that—unlike Munch's earlier 1884 portrait of the then 14-year-old Inger in her black confirmation dress, a youthful work in the tradition of portraiture of the 19th century—Inger on the beach shows the future importance of the artist.

[4] For Reinhold Heller the painting conveys less a time of day than a mood, created by the contours and dimensional representations of figure and stones, the nonexistent horizon between sky and sea, and the almost monochrome blue.

[6] Tone Skedsmo says Inger on the beach is in the tradition of the naturalistic painters of the "Fleksum colony", namely Christian Skredsvig, Eilif Peterssen, Erik Werenskiold, Gerhard Munthe, Kitty Kielland and Harriet Backer, who were known for their quiet summer night moods.

A few months after its completion, the painting (originally titled Evening) was displayed for the first time at the annual autumn exhibition in Kristiana, while Munch had already traveled to Paris to collect impressions of the local art scene through which his symbolism would find expressive style.