Day 307- In Denmark

July 14, 2022

When will those closed galleries reopen, I wonder? In any event, Gallery 807 contains oils  by northern European painters working at or near home rather than in Italy. Aside from their subjects, would I be able to distinguish these paintings from those made by their French or Italian counterparts on the basis of style? I doubt it. Still, something about these works strikes me as, perhaps, a little less polished, a little more provincial, a bit removed stylistically from the centers of artistic innovation.  But maybe that is just silly, or plain wrong. 

Many of the paintings on display are landscapes that seek to capture the sublime in nature, but the two I chose for today's entry are a view of the Copenhagen harbor and a portrait of a young man. The harbor scene is by Johan Christian Dahl, a Norwegian-born painter who died in Dresden, where there was presumably a much livelier cultural scene than in Dahl's native Bergen.  The 1846 painting, which measures approximately 58 inches wide and 38 inches high. is titled, "Copenhagen Harbor by Moonlight," although to me it could be called "Copenhagen Harbor at Dawn" or "Copenhagen Harbor at Dusk," since I think the orb in the sky could be either a rising or a setting sun. But the real subject of the painting is light. The shrouded moon plays on the water and mutes the ocher and brown tones of the surrounding buildings and the blues and grays of the water and sky, while the ripples of the harbor reflect the sky's pinkish tinge.  Blocky buildings (really just rectangles with triangular roofs ), along with spires and ship masts, define the boundary between sky and water.  The silhouettes of several men appear in the foreground. It is clearly a setting for commercial activity, but in the painting, all is serene. 

The portrait is of Valdemar Kobke, the younger brother of Christen Kobke, a Danish artist who lived between 1810 and 1848.  The 1838 painting, whose dimensions are about 26 inches high and 24 inches wide, shows Valdemar in his double-breasted seaman's uniform, replete with brass buttons and a red collar. The flesh tones of Valdemar's face and the navy of his coat stand out against the reddish-brown background. The subject was 25 or so at the time, but he looks younger to me, perhaps because of his unruly hair and full, sensuous lips, which contrast with his long straight nose.  He looks out intently at the viewer, although I find it hard to read his expression. It's a memorable work nonetheless - perhaps because of its very ambiguity.