Johan Christian Clausen Dahl

After a seven-year apprenticeship with a decorative painter in Bergen, Johan Christian Clausen Dahl went to the academy in Copenhagen in 1811, but the instruction he received from the professors who came from the circle of the classicist Nicolai Abildgaard was of little importance; Dahl trained himself on 17th-century Dutch painters, especially Allaert van Everdingen, on the Danish landscape painters of the late 18th century and on nature.
When Dahl went to Dresden in 1818, his free, naturalistic oil studies caused a great stir among younger artists and Romantic painters alike. The Norwegian stayed with Caspar David Friedrich, with whom Dahl had a lifelong friendship.
In 1820 Dahl became a member of the academy and in 1824 professor with well-known pupils such as Thomas Fearnley, Karl Blechen and Christian Friedrich Gille. On a trip to Italy, which Dahl undertook at the invitation of the Danish Crown Prince Christian Friedrich, he achieved a freedom and immediacy in his oil studies that made him an important protagonist of ‘plain air’ painting.
When he returned to Dresden, he increasingly painted Nordic subjects inspired by his homeland Norway, which he saw again in 1826. From now on, depictions of the Norwegian landscape are the main theme of his painting; he visits his homeland four more times, where he is credited with founding the National Gallery, the first art societies and the Antiquities Society.