Johan Christian Dahl
The Danish-Norwegian artist Johan Christian Dahl is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway and the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting. In 1811, he relocated from his native Bergen to Copenhagen, where, at the age of 23, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts to study landscape painting. A dedicated landscape artist, Dahl produced open-air oil studies, detailed finished views, and imaginative landscapes based on memory and the works of his Dutch predecessors.
In 1818, Dahl traveled to Dresden, where he was deeply influenced by the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. At the invitation of Danish Prince Christian Frederick, Dahl journeyed to Rome and Naples, where he painted oil sketches and completed views of Italian sites. Returning to Dresden in 1821, Dahl spent the rest of his life there, living alongside Friedrich. He frequently traveled to Norway and Denmark, exhibiting his works regularly in Copenhagen.
The painting we present today was painted in Dresden in January 1827, following one of Dahl's trips to Norway the previous summer, during which he visited Christiania (modern-day Oslo). The painting exudes a melancholic, nocturnal mood, a hallmark of Friedrich's art, and incorporates romantic motifs such as a cloud-covered moon, a rocky inlet, misty hills, a haunting ship at anchor, drying nets, and a couple contemplating the scene—elements commonly found in Friedrich’s works. Dahl owned one of Friedrich's most notable works, Two Men Contemplating the Moon.
P.S. Friedrich's art was unique because of the mood it conveyed. Take a look at 6 Shades of Romantic Creepiness in Caspar David Friedrich’s Paintings.