Johan Christian Dahl - Painter of Serenity

If I had to pick my all time favourite night time scene, it would be “View Of Dresden By Moonlight” painted by Johan Christian Dahl in 1839.  The towers reaching majestically towards the heavens, the flares on the riverbank, the candlelit rooms in the distance and the sheen of moonlight on the water.  (A very close second would be JMW Turner’s amazing watercolour “Alnwick Castle”, painted 10 years earlier.)

View of Dresden By Moonlight, 1839, 78 cm x 130 cm

You can see why he is considered the first great Norwegian romantic painter.  In his series ‘Art Of Scandinavia’, art historian Andrew Graham Dixon paints a bleak picture of life in Norway in the years leading up to the arrival of Dahl on the artistic landscape.  Norway was essentially a backward country of farmers and fisherman, cobblers and carpenters, there were no universities, art schools or art galleries so seeking an artistic career must have seemed a pipedream.  Or an irrelevance.

But that didn’t deter Dahl who was the son of a poor west coast fisherman.  His early paintings convinced a group of wealthy local merchants to sponsor his studies in Denmark and Germany, and he would spend most of his life abroad.  Yet he would consistently return to his native Norway for inspiration.

Winter At The Sognefjord, 1827, 75 cm x 61 cm

Sometimes he depicted harsh winter scenes, in other paintings the sun would be shining, but it was always a pale watery sun struggling to break through the clouds.  Graham-Dixon argues that Dahl saw the undeveloped landscape as a virtue, a symbol of Norway’s innocence. 

View from Stalheim, 1842, 190 cm x 246 cm

In his monumental “View From Stalheim”, Dahl seems to pull out all stops to produce a grand patriotic statement, perhaps presenting the essence of what it meant to be Norwegian at a time of rampant industrialization in other parts of Europe.

Dahl spent a large part of his life in Germany, settling in Dresden around 1820.  He befriended the famous German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and they became very close and were godfathers to each other’s children.  They painted and exhibited together and from 1824, even shared the same house with their respective families.

View From Lyshornet, 1836, 41 cm x 51 cm

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer asked in 1840 “Why has looking at the moon become so beneficiary, so soothing and so sublime?  Because the moon remains purely an object for contemplation, not of the will. […] Furthermore, the moon is sublime, and moves us sublimely because it stays aloof from all our earthly activities, it sees all, yet takes no part in it…”

There is serenity and peace in Dahl’s painting of moonlit Dresden, a suggestion of nature and people coexisting harmoniously.  We see the Augustus Bridge spanning the Elbe River and the Baroque Church of Our Lady in the middle distance, and to the right the Old Town (Altstadt) – the historic town centre.  What could have been a meditation on loneliness and alienation has perhaps become a comforting scene, a reassurance that we are not alone.

References;

Art Of Scandinavia, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon BBC 4 (2016)

artschaft.com – Johan Christian Dahl (2018)

Art After Dark

Night time has been described as the time when reality disappears and imaginings begin.  People somehow seem less sane at night, according to Mark Twain.  Shakespeare described night as the witching time and the night seems to have been a particularly productive time for many artists, particularly those interested in images of drama, mystery and perhaps even madness.

Georges Del La Tour, Magdalen With A Smoking Flame, circa 1640

“If you are trying to image things rather than look at them, to see them with your mind’s eye, then darkness comes into its own, and the night becomes your ally.  The dark brought drama to our divine imaginings and made them feel real.” WALDEMAR jANUSZCZAK

Ippolito Caffi, Serenade In St Marks Place

Italian artist Ippolito Caffi (1809-1866) seems to have had a particularly intense relationship with the night. His daytime scenes of Venice are superb but it’s his night time scenes that are relevant here, and he is a difficult artist to find any substantial information on.

Ippolito Caffi, Marketplace in Venice by Moonlight

At an exhibition of his work, held at the Museo Correr in Venice in 2016, (what I would have given to see it) the catalogue describes Caffi as a restless observer of society and a convinced patriot.  “Venice was the city that Caffi loved most, whose freedom he fought for and whose spectacular beauty he translated into painting, employing a capacity for synthesis unequaled during the entire nineteenth century.”

Ippolito Caffi, The Pantheon By Moonlight

His patriotism drove him to become the first painter to record an Italian naval engagement, but his efforts came to nothing.  The Re d' Italia, on which he traveled was destroyed on July 20, 1866, by the Austro-Venetian fleet at the Battle of Lissa, drowning him along with his comrades.

Ippolito Caffi, Solar Eclipse Over Venice 1842

Caffi was also a fine chronicler of unusual events. Here is his depiction of a solar eclipse. One wonders how many of these people lost their sight whilst witnessing this event.

Johann Christian Claussen Dahl, Dresden In The Moonlight, 1839

There’s a gorgeous serenity in Johann Christian Dahl’s moonlit scenes of Dresden.  They take me to another level of consciousness, whereas I suspect a daytime view would not have the same effect.  The candle lit rooms across the river and the flares on the river bank contrast beautifully with the cold light of the moon.

Edward Hopper, The Nighthawks, 1943

Film directors love the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper. There are so many questions being posed here. What is the relationship between the couple on the right? What about the menacing figure of the guy with the powerful shoulders who has his back to us? No one has been able to precisely locate where this scene is, perhaps a deliberate ploy by Hopper to increase the mystery of the scene.

Moonlight Near Roxby Downs, 2014, Oil On Canvas, 101 cm x 142 cm

Roxby Downs is located in outback South Australia and this painting was inspired by a photo I saw of a lightning strike in the area, and I was particularly interested in the sheen on the water created by the lightning fork.  So I decided to turn the scene into a moonlit night time image, partly because of the challenge it presented and partly to highlight the isolation of the scene. And yet, the cold moonlight perhaps gives the scene a softness and harmony that may not be present during the daytime when you could image the appalling heat during the summer months.

Johan Christian Dahl

"Dresden By Moonlight" (1839).

There is a haunting beauty in this work by Dahl which is one of many moonlit scenes of Dresden he painted.  I love the moonlight reflecting off the water and the dimly lit buildings in the background which give this work an other worldliness.