A Danish Coast. View from Kitnæs on Roskilde Fjord. Zealand
Johan Thomas Lundbye (Danish, 1818–1848)
1843
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 188.5 cm, width 255.5 cm, height 203.9 cm, width 271.2 cm
- Culture
- Danish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
The concepts of "nation" and "people" were avidly discussed during the 1830s and 1840s. J.Th. Lundbye was particularly influenced by the art historian N.L. Høyen’s (1798-1870) programme for Danish painting and its contributions to building national pride and self-awareness. The coastline as characteristic of the Danish countryside When, in 1842, he decided to depict a Danish coastline in an unusually monumental format, the scene was to represent the quintessential characteristic of the Danish countryside: the extensive coastlines. The scene does not, in fact, depict a single, specific site, the main motif is based on cliffs that the artist saw and sketched at the Roskilde Fjord. He adapted these cliffs,making them rather more monumental, and combined them with scenes from elsewhere. The painting's hidden autobiographical commentary Work progressed slowly due to Lundbye’s characteristic self-doubt and scruples, but also as a result of interference from several selfappointed advisors, including Høyen. The artist was frustrated by his tendency to overdo details such as the vegetation in the foreground or a single cloud, and he remarked on this ineffectualness by painting a…
