Johan Christian Dahl
1788-1857
Johan Christian Claussen Dahl, also known as I.C. Dahl, was a Norwegian Romantic landscape painter. Johan Christian Dahl was born in Bergen. He formed his style without much tuition, remaining at Bergen. When he was twenty-four he left for the better field of Copenhagen, and ultimately settled in Dresden in 1818. There he was much influenced by the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. He is usually included in the German school, although he was thus close on forty years of age when he finally took up his abode in Dresden, where he was quickly received into the Academy and became professor.
German landscape-painting was not greatly advanced at that time, and Dahl contributed to improve it. He continued to reside in Dresden, though he traveled into Tirol and in Italy, painting many pictures, one of his best being that of the “Outbreak of Vesuvius”, 1820. He was fond of extraordinary effects, as seen in his “Winter at Münich”, and his “Dresden by Moonlight”, the “Haven of Copenhagen”, and the “Schloss of Friedrichsburg”. At Dresden may be seen many of his works, notably a large picture called Norway, and a Storm at Sea. He was received into several academic bodies, and had the orders of Vasa and St. Olav sent him by the king of Norway and Sweden.
