Romantic Landscapes: Dahl and Friedrich

“Dahl and Friedrich. Romantic Landscapes” represents a dialogue between the artists Johan Christian Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich. The exhibition presents works from a key period of their lives, when they found their themes and motifs and developed their artistic mastery.

The exhibition is based on the rich collections of paintings and drawings by Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) in Oslo and by Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) in Dresden. Not since the National Gallery’s major exhibition “Dahl’s Dresden” in 1980 has a greater number of Friedrich’s paintings been on display in Norway.

Friends and colleagues in Dresden
Both Dahl and Friedrich taught landscape painting at the Dresden Art Academy. It was during those momentous years in Dresden that both artists would discover their preferred subject matter and begin to master the art of painting. Dahl and Friedrich differed from each other both as artists and as personalities. Dahl was the down-to-earth extrovert, with a clear understanding of his patriotic calling to paint the nature of his home country Norway. Friedrich was the star-gazing introvert, with a metaphysical understanding of the world and art.

Reinvigorating art
Dahl and Friedrich breathed new life into art during the early nineteenth century and helped make landscape painting a far more important art form than before. Nature was no longer merely an idyllic or dramatic backdrop for historical or mythological events, but became significant in its own right. At the same time, painters could express a stronger and more personal attachment to nature and landscape.

An exterior and interior journey
The exhibition is set up as a journey through various types of landscapes with different state of mind and symbolic meanings. Just as Dahl and Friedrich did, we move from the wealthy city of Dresden and its cultural landscape to the pristine, unspoilt nature of Germany and Norway. At the same time, we will roam the wild with the small human figures in the pictures, depicted with their backs to the viewers. Perhaps we can recognize ourselves in their exertions, enthusiasm, fear, and longing?

“The exhibition is not only for lovers of art, but for all lovers of nature,” says the exhibition’s curator Frode Ernst Haverkamp.

“Dahl and Friedrich. Romantic Landscapes” will be on display at the National Gallery from 10 October 2014 to 4 January 2015. The exhibition is a collaboration between the National Museum in Oslo and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, where the exhibition will be shown in 2015.

Her Majesty Queen Sonja is the patron of the exhibition.

Press contact: Eva Engeset, eva.engeset@nasjonalmuseet.no / tel.: +0047 469 50 102