Art: Peder Balke and stormy weather

[baleanoptera]

This all started after a comment by schionatulander about how European Art is usually seen just as Italian, French, German and British art - with a few artists from other European countries thrown in for good measure. It's sad that this is the norm, as it all helps create a very narrow (and IMO very boring)Art Historical canon

Comments

[baleanoptera]

He does seem to encapsulate the Romanticist idea of the sublime in nature rather well. ;) I love the Stettind too, but my favourite is the last one of the Northern Lights.

The J.C. Dahl influence isn't very obvious no, but I found this painting which is one of his earlier works - and he seems to be more akin to Dahl there.

Funnily enough most of his paintings are rather small, or at any rate nowhere near as monumental some of Dahl's work. I must admit that the size of Balke's paintings surprised me - I was expecting larger-than-life, and instead some of the pictures had an almost intimate quality.

Balke is also a beloved artist in Northern Norway, as they see him as one of the first artists who painted the region with any dignity, and in some cases bothered to paint the region at all.

Perhaps the connection to Friedrich and that he worked mostly in Dresden let me think he was German. *hides, quickly*.Hee! That's okay. Considering that Dahl spent hardly any time as a grown-up in Norway I'm not sure how Norwegian he considered

[baleanoptera]

Ooh! That Dahl is gorgeous! And I can honestly say I've never seen it before! Most of his works that are exhibited in Norwegian museums are those that have "Norwegian" motives.

Thank you so much for scanning it! I really appreciated it.