Johan Christian Dahl (1788-1857) - Midnight Sun In Norway, 1850

Midnight sun in Norway
Watercolor and gouache on paper mounted on old cardboard, 27x20cm
Signed "JDahl" and dated 1850 lower left

Johan Christian Dahl, of Norwegian origin, is a traveling painter. In 1818 he met the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich in Dresden. His work is deeply marked by this encounter; his landscapes, although realistic, are imbued with that German romanticism which seeks to sublimate nature. His landscapes express appearance while revealing a hidden reality. Dahl was in Rome in February 1821. He spent a lot of time visiting museums, meeting artists and painting. Among the subjects inspired by Italy, he painted the site of Rome and the Gulf of Naples. But he remained nostalgic for his native country and went there several times, in 1826, 1834, 1839, 1844 and 1850, mostly to paint the mountains. From 1823 he moved to Dresden with his wife until 1857, the year of his death. Our gouache watercolor represents the midnight sun painted from the coast in northern Norway. It was during his last trip , in 1850, that he represents this exceptional site imbued with a mysticism revealed by the use of deep and strongly contrasted tones.Dahl gives a title in German to his work: "Mitternachtsonne in Norwegen" although he is perfectly bilingual , he nevertheless commits a small mistake because he forgot an additional "s" in "nacht".