1840
Oil on canvas
21.0 x 31.0 cms
Sold
In subject matter and in the poetic rendering of this moonlight seascape, showing a mother and child pointing at the distant sailing boat, Dahl comes closest in spirit to the art of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), his close friend and fellow artist with whom he shared the same house in Dresden from 1823 onwards. According to Marie Lodrup Bang this work is reminiscent of certain rocky coastal landscapes by Friedrich, in particular to Evening, Nordic Sea of 1826 (Börsch-Supan No. 350, Georg Schäfer Collection, Schweinfurth) and Nordic Sea by Moonlight of 1824 (Börsch-Supan No. 312) which uses Dahls drawing for his painting Skjergehavn by Moonlight. Both paintings, typically for Friedrich, represent an allegory of Death. Dahl must have sensed more or less intuitively that Friedrichs landscapes conveyed ideas transcending a naturalistic representation of nature. He felt that Friedrich in his art had passed the borderline between painting and poetry, and gave a surprisingly apt appraisal of his friends work in his obituary notes on Friedrich who died on the 8th of May 1840: && the quiet naturalness in his elegiac landscapes, convey a kind of tragic mystique. Friedrichs landscapes often look like silhouettes and have in their motifs and their outlines a kind of deep poetry, resembling shadow pictures, like those on Greek vases, that are not reliefs, but contain the fundamental idea of a deep, high art yes, they are like dream pictures from another world. Furthermore he states in his obituary notes Friedrich wusste und fühlte recht wohl, dass man nicht die Natur selber malt oder malen kann, sondern die eigene Empfindung .Dahl himself exhibited a moonlight piece View over Esrom Lake as early as 1815 when he was still a student at the Academy in Copenhagen. He mentions the picture in a letter to C. J. Thomsen, a museum official: The special thing I have succeeded in doing in this piece is the faint light cast by the moon over all the scenery, a peace that is spread all over the area, which makes it solemn and beautiful. The light in the clouds, the moon, the reflections in the water, in short a certain dimness that predominates it, if I dare say it, which must both be and not be, and shows that it is night . An earlier smaller variant of this picture, dated 1830, was exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1831under the title Moonlight Piece (see Bang 641, Private Collection, New York). By the time Dahl returned to Dresden from his two year long sojourn in Italy he had developed his own view of nature, independent of the 17th century Dutch artists he had studied so intensively in Copenhagen. In Italy, his study of nature gained maturity. After timid beginnings in Denmark, his outdoor sketching became more systematic. His small, spontaneous studies, especially the sketches of Vesuvius erupting and the cloud studies taken sur le vif with their free and summary technique made Dahl the leading exponent of plein air painting and back in Dresden assured him a constant flow of pupils who sought out Dahls landscape classes in order to paint nature as is. He continued to paint nature studies throughout his life.But it was his friendship with Friedrich, fourteen years his senior and an established artist at the peak of his fame, which really made Dresden so welcome to Dahl. He had an introduction to Friedrich from Rühle von Lilienstern in Berlin, and Friedrich was friendly towards the young foreigner from the start. He helped him to find lodgings and buy canvas and paint. He showed Dahl around town and called on him now and then. He did not say much, Dahl remarked, but he always seemed pleased. So Dahl naturally felt closer to Friedrich than to any of the other artists, especially as he felt they both had the same outlook on art, namely, that the first thing about a work of art is that it should appeal to everyone and not only to connoisseurs, that the studied effects and painterly finesses only derive from cold reasoning and are understood solely by specialists and fellow artists. When Dahl moved into the house where Friedrich lived, they became even closer friends. They were godfathers to each others children, they sent paintings together to the various exhibitions, and when one had visitors, these were taken to see the works of the other. The two friends were regarded as the typical pair of complementary artists, Friedrich the idealist painter and Dahl the naturalist, but both truly committed to Romanticism. They were considered a pair to such an extent that they were always mentioned together in the exhibition reviews and people tended to order companion pieces from them, where Friedrichs tranquil coastal landscapes were contrasted with Dahls storms and shipwreck scenes. But the two friends were also opposites in body and mind. Friedrich was a big, bony man with blond hair and beard and was of an introvert, brooding character, deeply religious and prone to meditation. Dahl was small and dark-haired with an eruptive temperament and a lively, matter-of-fact disposition, although he admitted to a certain piety and shared the religious feeling of his Romantic friends in contemplation of nature. The different mentality of the two artists also showed in their attitude to work. Dahl would start his subject directly on to canvas, composed from the various drawings and studies scattered around him, at great speed and with his studio full of visitors. Friedrich began his painting only after days of meditation when the entire scene stood clearly before his inner eye. He then worked in successive thin glazes, in order to have the whole composition visible at every stage in the process. Friedrich preferred an empty studio where nothing distracted his contemplation, and when he was painting the sky in his landscapes, nobody dared to speak to him.During his long stay in Dresden Dahl settled down to a happy life of domesticity and work. His connection with the Academy was loose, but he was nor hankering after worldly glory. He appreciated his independence more than academic honour and was content with family life, enough commissions for paintings, and with the teaching of pupils who sought him out. Thanks to his intelligence and lively charm Dahl had many friends and was an respected participant on the Dresden cultural scene. In 1828 Dahl was among the founder members of the Sächsische Kunstverein and sat on the committee. His painting found many buyers in Dresden as well as further afield. Among his customers were the foreign envoys at the court and the growing numbers of travelers passing through Dresden eager to snap up one of his typical Nordic Stimmungs Bilder. His family life was serene. Emilie, his wife, gave him four children. But this happy state did not last very long. In 1827 Dahl lost his wife, who died giving birth to their son Siegwald, and in 1829 two of his children, Alfred Harald and Marie, succumbed to scarlet fever. In January 1830 Dahl married his pupil, the elderly maiden Amalie von Bassewitz, but was shattered when he lost her in childbirth in December the same year. This last born child, Harald, died in 1835. Dahl was now left with his two remaining children by Emilie, Caroline and Siegwald, and a devoted housekeeper, Mamsell Weise, who was like a mother to the children and who cared for the increasingly lonely old artist.Mother and Child by the Sea, executed in the year of Friedrichs death, may be seen as Dahls tribute to lifelong friendship. Not only to his artist friend, but to the two women in his life which meant so much to him and the children who had to die so early. Dahls brilliantly executed night sky with the moon hiding behind clouds further evokes this longing and is a reminder that one day Dahl himself will find eternal peace.
CONTACT GALLERY
M.L.Bang, Johan Christian Dahl, Life and Works, Oslo, 1987, no. 915
