![]() Dahl's 1817 painting Den Store Kro i Fredensborg marked the real beginning of his lifelong production of oil paintings depicting natural subjects.Īfter his success in Copenhagen, Dahl realized that he wanted to live as an independent, self-supporting artist. Eckersberg returned from abroad with his paintings of Roman settings Dahl was impressed at once, and they became good friends and exchanged pictures. ![]() Prince Christian Frederik of Denmark, who developed an early interest in Dahl's artistic genius and saw to it that his works were purchased for the royal collection, became a lifelong friend and patron of the artist. As one critic has put it, “Unlike the radically Romantic works also appearing at the time, Dahl softens his landscape, introducing elements of genre painting by imbuing it with anecdotal materials: In the background a wisp of smoke rises from a cabin, perhaps the home of the hunter on the snow-covered field.” Thanks to Sagen's recommendations and to his own personal charm, Dahl soon gained access to the leading social circles in Copenhagen.ĭahl took part in annual art exhibitions in Copenhagen beginning in 1812, but his real breakthrough came in 1815, when he exhibited no fewer than 13 paintings. When he added snow to a landscape he painted in the summer, it was not to show the light and colors of snow it was to use snow as a symbol of death. The mood was often idyllic, often melancholy. In 1812 he wrote to Sagen that the landscape artists he most wished to emulate were Ruisdahl and Everdingen, and for that reason he was studying “nature above all,” Dahl's artistic program was, then, already in place: he would become a part of the great landscape tradition, but he would also be as faithful as possible to nature itself.ĭahl held that a landscape painting should not just depict a specific view, but should also say something about the land's nature and character – the greatness of its past and the life and work of its current inhabitants. It was also Sagen who took up a collection that made it possible for Dahl to go to Copenhagen in 1811 to complete his education at the academy there.Īs important as Dahl's studies at the academy in Copenhagen were his experiences in the surrounding countryside and in the city's art collections. Another mentor, Lyder Sagen, showed the aspiring artist books about art and awakened his interest in historical and patriotic subjects. Still, Dahl looked back on his teacher as having kept him in ignorance in order to exploit him, putting him to work painting theatrical sets, portraits, and views of Bergen and its surroundings. From 1803 to 1809 Dahl studied with the painter Johan Georg Müller, whose workshop was the most important one in Bergen at the time. He regretted that he never had a "real teacher" in his childhood and, despite all his spectacular success, he believed that if he had been more fortunate in his birth, he would have achieved even more than he had.Īs a boy, Dahl was educated by a sympathetic mentor at the Bergen Cathedral who at first thought that this bright student would make a good priest, but then, recognizing his remarkably precocious artistic ability, arranged for him to be trained as an artist. He was, for example, a key figure in the founding of the Norwegian National Gallery and of several other major art institutions in Norway, as well as in the preservation of Norwegian stave churches and the restoration of the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim and Bergenhus Fortress in Bergen.ĭahl came from a simple background – his father was a modest fisherman in Bergen, Norway – and he would later look back at his youth with bitterness. Dahl occupies a central position in Norwegian artistic life of the first half of the 19th century.Īlthough Dahl spent much of his life outside of Norway, his love for his country is clear in the motifs he chose for his paintings and in his extraordinary efforts on behalf of Norwegian culture generally. He was also the first to acquire genuine fame and cultural renown abroad. He is often described as "the father of Norwegian landscape painting" and is regarded as the first Norwegian painter to reach a level of artistic accomplishment comparable to that attained by the greatest European artists of his day. Dahl, was a Danish-Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting, and, by some, one of the greatest European artists of all time. Johan Christian Claussen Dahl, often known as J.
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