Baltic Light : Early Open-Air Painting in Denmark and North Germany

by Catherine Johnston, Helmut R. Leppien, and Kasper Monrad

• ISBN13: 9780300081664
• ISBN10: 0300081669
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-11-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Danish and German artists studying in Paris and Rome brought back the concept of "plein air" painting and began to paint out-of-doors on their native soil. They introduced a whole new aesthetic that was sensitive to the light and atmospheric conditions peculiar to the north, especially during the long summer days. This beautiful book focuses on the painters and paintings of this period, particularly Caspar David Friedrich, who produced many fine works before he developed the romantic style for which he is better known.

The book presents topographical landscapes, panoramas, and some group and individual portraits that often include a window from which light emanates. Essays by eminent authorities discuss various aspects of the Danish and North German open air movement. They note, for example, that the paintings reflect a direct view of nature devoid of the intellectual and moral overtones of the neoclassical paintings that preceded them. They also discuss the fact that Schleswig Holstein was closely allied with

Table of Contents

Foreword	vi
Lenders to the Exhibition	vii
Acknowledgements	viii
Contributors	ix
Preface	x
Map of the north German and Baltic region	1	(1)
A View Through Three Arches: Danish and German Artists in Denmark, Germany and Italy	2	(10)
Kasper Monrad
Friedrich and Pomerania	12	(4)
Helmut R. Leppien
Between Copenhagen and Dresden: Berlin	16	(8)
Helmut Borsch-Supan
``Light, Colour and Moving Life'': Hamburg	24	(4)
Helmut R. Leppien
The Rediscovery of Danish and North German Painting of the Early Nineteenth Century	28	(13)
Catherine Johnston
List of Artists	41	(1)
Artists' Biographies	42	(10)
Catalogue	52	(166)
Select Bibliography	218	(2)
Picture Credits	220