1788 -1857 · Bergen, Copenhagen, Dresden and landscapes of Norway

Mountains, waterfalls and northern lights make Johan Christian Dahl the founder of the Norwegian romantic landscape.

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl was born in Bergen in 1788 into a modest family. At fifteen, he entered the studio of decorator Johan Georg Müller, then joined the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1811. He studied Dutch masters, observed nature and affirmed that the landscape must possess the dignity of a major genre. Installed in Dresden in 1818, Dahl became close to Caspar David Friedrich and later taught at the Academy. Their romanticism shared a taste for contemplation, but Dahl retained a very concrete attention to geology, trees, climate and the shapes of the terrain. His romanticism shared a taste for contemplation, but Dahl retained a very concrete attention to geology, trees, climate and the shapes of the terrain. His travels to Norway from 1826 provided him with study notebooks then transforms into the workshop. View of Stalheim, completed in 1842, brings together deep valley, mountains, road, houses and tiny figures in an image that is both precise and monumental. View of Dresden by moonlight shows how low light can unite city, river and sky. In landscapes with waterfalls, water becomes a vertical force that animates the rock and the forest. Dahl also defends Norwegian heritage, including ancient standing wooden churches. Died in Dresden in 1857, he played an essential role in the formation of a national awareness of the landscape: Norwegian nature is no longer a peripheral setting, but a historical and cultural subject. The selection "Johan Christian Dahl notably compares View of Stalheim and View of Dresden in the moonlight. His reading favors drawing.

Dahl paints the mountain as a lived territory: the road, the house and the traveler give scale, while the light transforms the topography into national memory.