Welcome Guests from Denmark

As part of a long-term cooperation agreement with the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the Hamburger Kunsthalle presents Danish landscape painting from the »Golden Age«. Following on from the exhibitions In the light of Caspar David Friedrich. Early plein-air painting in Denmark and North Germany (2000) and the Vilhelm Hammershøi retrospective (2003), this is the third project to result from our close collaboration.

Welcome Guests from Denmark focuses on landscape depictions from the »Golden Age« of the early 19th century; among the best-known painters in this genre are Frederik Sødring (1809–1862), Christen Købke (1810–1848) and Johan Thomas Lundbye (1818–1848). Unlike students at all the other art academies in Europe, young painters in Copenhagen were taught by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853) to study the landscape in natural light. Their paintings from nature present everyday scenes and details from the landscape of their home country.

Eckersberg had become familiar with plein-air painting in Rome in the period between 1813 and 1816, as demonstrated by his views of the city that are also included in this exhibition; according to Eckersberg, these works »were all painted on the spot, directly from nature«. With his sober attitude and specific focus on visible reality, Eckersberg, who held the post of Professor of history painting at the Academy of  Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1818 onwards, had a formative influence on the Academy until the mid-19th century and is still referred to as the »father of Danish painting«.

The appeal of the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen extended even beyond the boundaries of Denmark in the first half of the 19th century. Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785–1847) and Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810) were among those who studied there around 1800; paintings by these artists can be seen in the adjoining rooms of the exhibition.

Welcome Guests from Denmark aims to throw new light upon the close links between landscape painting in Denmark and Germany in the early 19th century. The Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen has kindly agreed to lend these paintings to the Kunsthalle for approximately one year. In 2007 the Kunsthalle will in turn make a guest appearance in Copenhagen with works by German Romantic painters.