March 14, 2011

The Danish Golden Age: Figure Painting

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1815; oil on canvas; 12 1/4 x 8 3/8 inches.


I can still remember my surprise and delight when I first saw the collection of paintings from the Danish Golden Age at museums in Copenhagen thirty years ago. During this period in the first half of the 19th century there was an outpouring of beautiful, sensitive, and rather modest painting (notice how small these paintings are). I showed landscapes from this period, along with some from Australia, in this post, but now I'd like to present some figure paintings.


Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Woman Standing in Front of a Mirror, 1837; oil on canvas; 13 1/8 x 10 1/4 inches.


Eckersberg, seen as the "father of Danish painting", brought a clear realism to his work, tempered by a classical sense of composition, learned as a student of Jacques-Louis David in Paris. The touching portrait of a young woman in her finery has a crispness of form and a quality of light that almost shimmers with life. The more severely classical woman before her mirror becomes a solid, graceful presence, with each shape flowing into another, each part in perfect balance.


Constantin Hansen, Portrait of a Little Girl, 1850; oil on paper on canvas; 15 3/8 x 14 inches.


I don't think I've ever seen another such direct, powerful portrait of a child, so self assured and penetrating. She seems to question our own being, our place in the world.


Constantin Hansen, Male Model Sitting on a Box, 1833; oil on canvas; 12 7/8 x 9 1/8 inches.

Christen Købke, Male Model, 1833; oil on canvas, 21 1/4 x 17 1/8 inches.


Isn't it fun to be able to see figure studies by two artists who were sitting side by side in a modeling session, which was under the tutelage of Eckersberg. Although the two paintings are different in the development of the form and the quality of light––Hansen's being less solid but more light-infused––we can see that light was a prime concern for both.


Christen Købke, Portrait of Frederik Sødring, 1832; oil on canvas; 16 5/8 x 14 7/8 inches.


I love this portrait by Købke, so fresh and alive. Although full of objects and details, its structure is simple and strong. That bit of strong red sitting on the table looks like a bit of an artistic joke, which demands some attention and contrasts with the calm, happy face of the subject, a friend of the artist.


Christen Købke, View from a Grain Loft in the Citadel, 1831; oil on canvas; 15 3/8 x 12 inches.


This is another favorite of mine. Looking outward from a dark interior, we see a sunlit world, lush and green. The soft red dress of the woman sets her apart from her surroundings, and we see that she is absorbed in a task, paying no attention to the children behind her.


Wilhelm Marstrand, Portrait of the Architect Gottlieb Bindeshøll, 1834; oil on canvas; 12 3/8 x 10 1/4 inches.


With this portrait by Marstrand we see yet another painting that is so direct, so bursting with life that it seems that Danish painters had a particular gift in capturing a human presence with the play of feelings across a face, with gesture and with light.

17 comments:

  1. Fantastic post! So many super paintings I've never seen before. The Kobke "View from the Grain Loft..." one for example is exceptional.
    Thanks!

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  2. It is always so nice to discover new painters -- and such good ones.

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  3. Another excellent post. These paintings are new to me, and they are beautiful. They seem modern in their freshness and quirkiness. Some of them, especially Hansen's Portrait of a Little Girl, make me wonder if Balthus was interested in this Danish Golden Age.

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  4. I enjoy reading what you see and think about a painting. It always give me a new perspective. Often light is the subject or it gives live to the painting.

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  5. Thank you all for your comments and your interest in these beautiful paintings. I had a similar reaction when first seeing them: a thrill of discovery and surprise at how contemporary they looked.

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  6. Thanks for sharing these Altoon. I agree with your observations about them and particularly like: "Portrait of a Young Woman", "Portrait of a Little Girl", and "View From a Grain Loft...".

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  7. These are quite surprising and interesting. How little I know of Scandinavian painting! (And that pose in paintings 4 and 5 is unbelievably awkward, isn't it? Poor man.)

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  8. kobke is a relatively recent discovery for me - thanks for posting more of his work.

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  9. Thanks for sharing these...enjoyed. Yes, that nude male pose is so uncomfortable...was surprised to see it twice, then I read. Love the engaging fellow in last photo.....

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  10. Thanks for these. I didn't know any of these painters. I really enjoy your blogs.

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  11. i love the woman in the mirror,her body is amazing! back when they idolized curves and not tiny skinny little women,i find it much more beautiful:)

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  12. Wonderful. How about a later luminary, Vilhelm Hammershøi?

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  13. A., I love Hammershøi's work, but he comes later. You remind me that I should do a post on his work.

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  14. I love so many of the Scandinavian painters - Kobke, Hammershoi, Carl Larsson and the Norwegian painter J.C.Dahl, to mention only a few. In many ways the Scandinavians are an under appreciated group but every once in a while there is good show of their work.

    Richard

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  15. Richard, Larsson is the only artist you mention that I don't know; I'll have to look him up. I love this group of painters; they've gotten a bit of attention in the US in recent years, though they are still mostly under the radar.

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  16. Carl Larsson was a Swedish painter (1853-1919) who was, and still is, fairly famous in Sweden. But he was not only a painter and muralist; he also tried to integrate his ideas of beauty into all facets of his life and this can be seen in his home which is still kept as a museum to his life and work.

    Richard

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  17. Here is the Larsson site - and if you go down to Lilla Hyttnas and click on it you can see good shots of the interior of the house.

    Richard

    http://www.clg.se/encarl.aspx

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