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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GUSTAV BAUERNFEIND

 

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah 

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Gustav Bauernfeind (1848-1904), was a notable Orientalist painter of Germany. He studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Stuttgart, and also worked with Professor Wilhelm Bäumer and Adolph Gnauth. He was a good illustrator.

Gustav began by meticulously capturing, everyday life, little-known corners, markets and narrow lanes. But, did not find many buyers. He made three trips to the Near East, before returning to Munich in 1890. He became known for exotic oriental scenes of the near East, crafted with photographic accuracy.

He produced landscape scenes and oil paintings of Venice, Florence, Pavia, Naples and Sicily and several watercolours. He loved the Orient, and so settled in Jerusalem in 1898. He also lived and worked in Lebanon and Syria.

He was a realist painter, who used vibrant colour that captured the sunshine of the East. He included local people in his compositions.

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GONZALO BILBAO

 

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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Gonzalo Bilbao Martínez (1860-1938) was a Spanish Costumbrista painter, and later an art professor. He studied Law, but came back to art. He was constantly on the move, traveling to places like Rome, Naples, Venice, Paris, America and exotic Arabic locations like, Algeria, Morocco.

Martinez frequently visited to Paris, and that allowed him to observe styles of other painters. These changed his impressionistic style to luminarist technique. Luminarism is concerned with the effects of light and shade through smoother or edge-less application of colours. Impressionism, uses bold and distinctive brush strokes for the ‘effects.’

Martinez painted local urban and rural scenes, besides some sensual portraits. His works strongly reflect Spanish manners and society of the time, in spite of exotic locations and people.

 In 1893, he was appointed a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes and, in 1901, became President of the Athenaeum. In 1903, he became a Professor at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría.

 

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