Landscape Painting in the Golden Age

Describe the Danish Golden Age of painting and explain how the artists and their work helped shape the perception of the Danish landscape.

There is an incredible depth to the history of landscape painting which I must say I have never before understood. Qualities of light, depth of field, angle of the viewer, brush strokes – they all tell us something about the painter, their agenda, and the social and political context of the work in history. Yesterday our class was lucky enough to visit the Hirschsprung Collection, a museum of 19th-century Danish painting and sculpture in Copenhagen. As a precursor to our visit, Toby brought in a guest lecture from an art professor at DIS – a smart move, as I would have been totally lost without it.

image of the Hirschsprung Collection's home. from Google.

We first discussed the definition of a landscape – space, topography, nature, culture, something we've been experiencing first-hand over the last two weeks of our course – and how that landscape might be represented in art. This representation and manipulation changed drastically between the 1800s and today, in style, medium and agenda/attitude.

The Danish Golden Age was a period of artistic production in the early to mid 19th century, concurrent with many unfortunate events in Denmark's political and social history. Between 1807 and 1814, Denmark faced attacks from the British on Copenhagen, a state of bankruptcy, and the ceding of an enormous piece of land, now Norway.

Danish landscape painters clearly had political motivation for their works. Early golden age works show the landscape as being impressive, almost daunting, a characteristic that is almost hilariously untrue. Seaside cliffs were exaggerated in size, skies showed impressive sunsets and dark clouds, and humans were dwarfed. These landscapes encouraged a pride in the land, for what was left after the political changes and tragedies. They encouraged people to appreciate the wildness of the sea and the countryside.

As we move forward, landscape paintings become more realistic in appearance but no less manipulated. Painters would go into the field and sketch, picking the most perfect elements of the landscapes they wished to represent, returning to their studio to put the piece together. People in these paintings always appear happy and prosperous, Danish flags would be flown, and skies show gorgeous soft light and fluffy clouds. This was an attempt to remind Danes of the beauty of their country and to encourage a national pride in their way of life.

by Christen Købke

Subject was also important. Spring and summer scenes were by far most popular, important in a country which has such long and desolate winters. As industrialization started to take hold in Copenhagen, many painters moved to Skagen at the northern tip of Jutland in order to capture an old way of life and the unique qualities of light to be found there. These images take peoples minds away from the dirty cities, and focus on the hard working fisherman, playing children and gorgeous coastscapes.

by P.S. Krøyer

The Golden Age of Danish art was highly political. These politics motivated some amazing artistic expression and development of technique. I think that because national pride is no longer such an issue, landscape art today has moved away from these pastoral visions. Artists have a wide variety of inspiration, but one might argue that environmental protection and conservation is being pushed more than ever. No matter the agenda, it's interesting to look at danish greenspace (and any other greenspace) as a muse for creative expression.