Johan Christian Dahl
Norway's Romantic landscape painter.
Johan Christian Dahl worked in Dresden and was a friend of Caspar David Friedrich. He gave Norwegian nature its first great images.
Johan Christian Dahl was born in 1788 in Bergen, Norway. His family was poor, and he was apprenticed to a decorative painter in the town. There he learned the craft and painted stage sets and views, among other things. With the help of Bergen merchants he was able to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1811.
In 1818 he moved to Dresden. There he became a close friend of Caspar David Friedrich, and they later lived in the same house on the Elbe. Dahl became a professor at the academy in Dresden and stayed in the city for the rest of his life. He also made a long journey to Italy and painted, among other things, Vesuvius in eruption.
Dahl often returned to Norway on journeys and drew mountains, fjords, rapids and valleys. His best-known works are grand Norwegian landscapes, such as Winter at the Sognefjord (1827) and View from Stalheim (1842), both in the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo, and Birch Tree in a Storm (1849) in Bergen. He also painted atmospheric views of Dresden by moonlight.
Unlike Friedrich, who composed landscapes with a symbolic meaning, Dahl was more realistic and studied nature directly. He made many outdoor oil sketches of clouds and weather. His skies are dramatic and his brushwork free and vigorous.
Dahl's private life was hard. Both his wives died in childbirth, and several of his children died young. He was committed to Norwegian culture and helped found the National Gallery in Oslo. He also worked to preserve Norway's stave churches. He died in Dresden in 1857 and is today called the father of Norwegian landscape painting.