JOHAN CHRISTIAN DAHL

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

Johan Christian Dahl (1788-1857) was a Danish-Norwegian Romantic artist. He was also known as J. C. Dahl or I. C. Dahl. His works also include landscapes in Scandinavia and Germany.

Dahl first studied with individual artists, and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He sketched and painted, with oil, water (gauche) colours and ink. He began landscape painting, in an age that preferred historical paintings with moral messages. Landscapes were considered the lowest kind of art, and perhaps even not as art at all.

Dahl painted everything touching the seas and mountains, like views of fjords, wild coasts, beaches, stormy seas, vibrant skies, morning-evening skies, moonlight views, forests, waterfalls and sail boats.

Dahl held that ‘a landscape painting must say something about the land's nature and character’. And he did that through free and adventurous brush strokes to scenic dynamism.

Dahl was among the founding fathers of the National Gallery of Norway (Norwegian: Nasjonalgalleriet), now the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, and donated his own art collection to the institution.

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