DANISH BIEDERMEIER PAINTING.  THE GOLDEN AGE IN DANISH PAINTING .         MORE

 Geraldine Norman in BIEDERMEIER PAINTING 1815 – 1848 . THAMES AN HUDSON 1987. ISBN 0-500-23493-0

 COPENHAGEN.

In1846 Christen Købke was denied membership of the Copenhagen Academy after he had submitted a view of Capri in a bid to qualify for this honour.  He died, embittered, two years later.  Today the flowering of Danish painting in the early nineteenth century is referred to interchangeably as 'The Golden Age' or 'The Age Købke. “. The painters of the 'Golden Age' in Denmark were rediscovered, as the German Biedermeier painters were, around the turn of the century.  The pioneering art historian Emil Hannover published a monograph on Købke in 1893, on Eckersberg in 1898 and on Constantin Hansen in 1903. Where Købke was its genius, Eckersberg was the dominating influence on the age in his role as professor of painting at the Copenhagen Academy.  The academy was housed in the old Charlottenborg Palacewhich also provided apartments for leading artists and craftsmen.  Eckersberg was given an apartment when he became a professor in 18 1 8 and he remained there for thirty-five years.  He taught the drawing and life classes at the academy and his pupils learned to paint by working in his studio.  They also accompanied him on sketching trips around the ramparts, harbour and lakes of Copenhagen. Eckersberg's student years had been spent in David's studio in Paris and then in Rome.  From David he had learned classical composition, idealization and smooth, highly finished modelling.  The high finish and attention to detail were imitated by Eckersberg's pupils, though .Købke was to achieve a looser, more emotive, brushwork. True to the spirit of the age, Eckersberg painted many religious and historical subjects but these pictures have now been forgotten.  His Portraits, Roman views and the little pictures of ships and harbours which he painted for his own pleasure throughout his life are now considered his major achievements.  All are characterized by simple, objective Realism which is also the hallmark of the Danish 'Golden Age'. Købke applied the same Realist approach to the landscape around Copenhagen and to portraits, though he was prepared to cheat a little by heightening effects of light with excellent results.  Constantin Hansen applied it to portraits, Lundbye to landscape, Rørbye to genre and architectural views, and Bendz to the middle-class conversation piece. Their pictures are of consistently small dimensions.  It is astonishing with such famous works as købke portrait of Frederik Sødring to find so much lively detail crammed into so small a space. As in neighbouring Germany, the middle classes were the principal clients for the work of these 'little masters'.  Indeed, Denmark's economic and social life was very similar to that of Germany. The country's attempt to remain neutral during the Napoleonic Wars had come to an end with the British fleet's devastating attack on Copenhagen in 1807.  Thereafter Denmark became Napoleon's ally and suffered in consequence of his defeat.  Norway, which had traditionally owed allegiance to the Danish crown, had to be ceded to Sweden as part of the peace settlement. As Duke of Holstein, the Danish King was a member of the German Confederation but he resolutely declared Schleswig to be an integral part of Denmark.  The Schleswig-Holsteiners' desire for independence became a growing political problem and led to war in 1848 when the Prussian army came to the aid of the insurgents. In 18 15 Denmark's economy, like that of most German states, was in ruins and recovery was slow.  The Biedermcier years also saw press censorship and political repression in Denmark very parallel to that imposed by Metternich on the German Confederation. The traditional antipathy between Danes and Germans, exemplified by the Schleswig-Holstein issue, did not extend to the field of art, where links were close and fruitful.  Johan Christian Dahl was born in Norway in 1788, when it was still part of the Danish hegemony, and entered the Copenhagen Academy in 1811.  One of the greatest masters of naturalistic landscape painting in northern Europe, he had a significant influence on the Danish school though he left for Dresden in 1818.  Both Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich, who had studied in Copenhagen at the turn of the century, continued to exhibit there. Several Danish artists of the 1840s experimented with a mystical interpretation of the moods of nature in the manner of Friedrich.  In turn, Copenhagen provided the main inspiration for naturalistic painters in Hamburg and elsewhere in northern Germany.

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