If Finland and Norway represented peripheries in terms of artistic life and education, Denmark and Sweden – Copenhagen and Stockholm respec-tively – acted as centres, since they already had their own art academies at the beginning of the nineteenth century.100 Correspondingly, it was easier for Danish and Swedish artists to start their artistic training in their home countries and to have academic training earlier than in Finland and Nor-way.101 Actually, Denmark was predominant among the Nordic countries during the first half of the century, and Copenhagen became a kind of ar-tistic centre in the North.102 In Denmark, this period is called the Golden Age, whereas in Sweden it has been regarded as a period of decline.103 Nonetheless, it was popular among the artists in both countries to travel to Italy, and to Rome in particular. One of the attractions of going to Italy was the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), who was prominent in Roman intellectual and artistic circles and whose fame drew artists from different European countries and even from the USA.104
98 Askeland 1976, 11–12; Haverkamp 2003, 32.
99 For instance, the Finnish artist Victor Westerholm (1860–1919) came to study in Düsseldorf in 1878 due to lacking knowledge of French. Reitala 1967, 37.
100 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts was originally inaugurated in 1754. Correspondingly, the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1773, but it had already started as the Royal Drawing Acad-emy in 1735.
101 This applies mainly to male artists.
In Sweden, however, women were already allowed to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1864. Before that, some women had been allowed to study drawing with a special permission. See Bengtsson &
Werkmäster 2005, 41.
102 Several Norwegian artists also trav-elled to Copenhagen to study art.
103 In comparison, in Finland the latter half of the century is called the Gold-en Age.
104 Nordic artists came into contact with Germans in Rome, and correspond-ingly with the ideas and forms of the ideal landscape. For the Scandina-vian artists in Rome, see for instance, Gunnarsson 1998, 56–77.
47 I N T r O D U c T I O N
As for Düsseldorf, it is to be noted that it did not play such a significant role for Danish artists as it did for the Norwegians or the Finns.
It also meant less to the Swedes. All in all, fewer Danish artists studied in Düsseldorf, around 15–20 altogether. This is due to the fact that the city became an important art scene for Nordic artists only in the 1850s, and this was a time when political tension started to influence the relation-ship between Prussia and Denmark, leading to war in 1864.105 Neverthe-less, Danish artists had contact with Germany before that, and they can be connected more closely with Dresden. Dahl had studied in Copenhagen before moving to Dresden, after which he had contact with several Danish artists, and some of them visited him there. In addition, the Norwegian philosopher Henrik Steffens, who had lived in Germany since 1804, intro-duced the ideas of German Romanticism to Denmark while lecturing in Co-penhagen in 1802–03.106 Besides, during the first half of the century, some German artists came to study in Copenhagen as well.
When discussing Danish Golden Age landscape painting, we can discern traces of early outdoor painting. However, instead of wild and mountainous views, which were popular in Finnish and particularly in Nor-wegian and Swedish landscape painting, Danish art portrays gently undu-lating fertile countryside where the relation between man and nature is in-timate and loving.107 Artists such as Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–
1853) studied nature with a determination for truth. He was, in fact, the first Nordic artist who painted directly from nature in oil, and he also invented a perspective octant.108 During his career, Eckersberg visited Paris (1810–13) and Rome (1813–16), and after his return to Denmark, he paid special atten-tion to cloud studies. Eckersberg was also interested in meteorology and kept a meteorological diary between 1826 and 1851. His interest in mete-orology might already have begun during his stay in Rome, where artists showed an enthusiasm for making cloud studies, but Torsten Gunnarsson suggests that it can also be connected with Dahl’s visit to Copenhagen in 1826.109 Eckersberg’s interest in cloud studies had an obvious impact on his student Christen Købke (1810–48), but Købke might also have been influ-enced by Dahl, whom he visited in Dresden.110
As such, Eckersberg was interested in the natural sciences, and not only attended the lectures of local scientific societies, Selskabet for Naturlaere and Naturvidenskabeligt Selskab in Copenhagen, but also the popularised scientific lectures given by the Danish physicist Hans
105 Nørgaard Larsen 1997, 322.
106 Gunnarsson 1998, 37–38; see also Kragh 2013, 155.
107 Artworks of Danish Golden Age art-ists can be found in the collections of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, The National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) and The Hirschsprung Collection.
108 Gunnarsson 1989, 55; Gunnarsson 1998, 14.
109 Gunnarsson 1989, 106.
110 Gunnarsson 1989, 138.
Christian Ørsted, who was the leading figure in the romantic natural phi-losophy movement in Denmark. Ørsted regarded science as culture and education instead of being an incentive for technological and econom-ic advancement, and he promoted this vision in his popular lectures.111 Eckersberg was also one of the founders of the scientific association Naturvidenskabelig Forening, and he knew several scientists in person, including the astronomer Georg Frederik Ursin and the geologist J. G.
Forchhammer.112 In general, scientific research and knowledge played an important role in Danish culture during the Golden Age, and many scientists had close contacts with artists. Several Danish artists attended Ørstedt’s lectures.113
The situation in Sweden was different from Denmark, despite the Swedes having their own art academy in Stockholm. When Swedish artists’ attention turned towards Düsseldorf in the Nordic exhibition in 1850, the Swedish art scene was waning. The much loved classical land-scapes of the Swedish wilderness by Carl Johan Fahlcrantz (1774–1861) had lost their appeal. Moreover, local audiences, including the King Os-car I, had become saturated with Italian landscapes that had been intro-duced by the foremost Swedish exponent of the classical landscape, Gus-taf Wilhelm Palm (1810–90).114 In addition, patriotic feelings had generat-ed a taste for national landscapes in the aftermath of the revolutionary years in Europe. In this context, the works of Norwegian artists, such as Gude and Tidemand, represented something new and inspiring, convinc-ing even the Swedish kconvinc-ing that it was necessary to travel to Düsseldorf to take up art studies there, and to start depicting Swedish nature and land-scape from a new point of view. For this study, I have researched Swedish artists’ works in the collections of art museums in Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm.115
One of the artists inspired by the Nordic exhibition in 1850 was Marcus Larson (1825–64) who moved to Düsseldorf in 1852. Larson, howev-er, did not study at the Kunstakademie, but stayed in Düsseldorf for three years, after which he continued on to Paris. Larson found inspiration in Andreas Achenbach’s landscapes, but was also fascinated by earlier seven-teenth-century Dutch art and loved dramatic effects. His paintings, which belong to the collections of Gothenburg Art Museum and Nationalmuse-um in Stockholm, mostly represent waterfalls set in dramatic light, with puffy cumulus and thunderclouds, but there are also some peaceful
land-111 Kragh 2013, 153.
112 Eckersberg’s theory of the perspec-tive was indebted to Ursin’s ideas of the geometrical relations of the perspective. Gunnarsson 1989, 108;
Kragh 2013, 153.
113 Altogether 32 artists attended Ør-stedt’s lectures in 1824–25. Later in 1848–49, Ørstedt continued with his lectures and talked about natural science and its relation to aesthetics, including the theory of optics, colour theory and the anatomical relation of the eye. Kragh 2013, 153, 162.
114 Palm stayed in Rome (1841–51). Gun-narsson 1998, 70.
115 In Sweden, I have visited the collec-tions of Malmö Art Museum, Gothen-burg Art Museum and the National-museum in Stockholm. In addition, I have visited the archives of the Na-tional Library of Sweden and the Roy-al Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm to research artists’ works and letters.
49 I N T r O D U c T I O N
scapes depicting forest scenery with a more naturalistic approach.116 For Larson, nature represented chaotic untamed forces, and he painted dra-matic views of stormy seas and shipwrecks in a similar spirit to Achenbach.
In addition, Larson had a special interest in geological forms and included rough stone surfaces and rocks in his landscapes.117
After Larson, there were a few more Swedish landscapists who came into contact with the local naturalism and learned to make studies directly from nature. Axel Nordgren (1828–88), who was awarded a grant by the Crown Prince Charles XV, came to Düsseldorf in 1851 and studied under Gude. Following Gude’s example, Nordgren painted Swedish in-land in-landscapes with a geographical and geological precision.118 In com-parison, Edvard Bergh (1828–80), who visited the city in 1850 and 1854, became fascinated by a more nationalistic approach to landscape.119 Later visitors to the city, Alfred Wahlberg (1834–1906) and Gustaf Ryd-berg (1835–1933), who stayed in Düsseldorf in 1857–59 and 1859–64 re-spectively, were interested in celestial and meteorological phenomena, painting several studies of clouds, but they also made sketches of trees, stones and rocks in the same spirit as the other landscapists in Düssel-dorf.120 All these artists thirsted for a new type of Nordic landscape.121 The Swedes studied landscape painting in Düsseldorf mainly in the 1850s and 60s and gathered there around Gude and Andreas Achenbach. But in the 1860s the attitudes towards Prussia changed due to the political situ-ation, and the Swedish King Charles XV, who is said to have disliked Bis-marck, recommended, for instance, that Wahlberg continue his studies Paris instead of Düsseldorf. It was first the war between Prussia and Den-mark in 1864 and later the war between Germany and France in 1870–71 that adversely affected the popularity of Düsseldorf in Sweden too. After that only a few Swedish artists studied there, although some stayed for good, such as Nordgren and August Jernberg (1826–96).122 Generally, the length of the period during which the Swedes studied in Düsseldorf was rather short – if compared with the Norwegians and the Finns – being about 14 years. As a conclusion, we can say that the relationship between Düsseldorf and the different Nordic countries varied. On the whole, the influence of Düsseldorf and its art academy was greater in Norway and Finland, whereas in Denmark and Sweden it had less impact as they had their own art academies and also because of the political situation in the 1860s and 1870s.
116 See, for instance, Woodland Pool in Sunshine (1853), GKM 0440.
117 See Stony Forest (1853), No. NM 4405 and Swedish Lake (1853), Study, NM 3353; see also footnote 610 in this study concerning Larson and his use of photographs.
118 See, for instance, Motif from Husqvar
na, undated, NM 4157.
119 For Bergh, see, for instance, View of Ulriksdahl from the Southeast (1862), NM 4752 and In the Forest (1868), NM 1054.
120 For Wahlberg, see, for instance, Swed
ish Landscape. Motif from Kolmården (1866), NM 1026. For Rydberg, see, for instance, Spring in Skåne (1868), NM 1059, and especially Rydberg’s cloud studies and 27 sketchbooks which be-long to the collections of Malmö Art Museum.
121 Loos 1945, 22.
122 See Loos 1945, Lindwall 1976, Bengts-son 1997.