Peder Balke
(Hedemarken, Norway 1804 - 1887 Oslo)
Old Trees, c. 1845-9
Oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 14 x 18.2 cm
Provenance:
Asbjørn Lunde (1927-2017), New York.
Exhibited:
- Peder Balke: Visjon og revolusjon, Tromsø, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, 2014, no. 18, repr. p. 137;
- Paintings by Peder Balke, London, National Gallery, 2014-2015, no. 16, repr. p. 80;
- Peder Balke: Painter of Northern Light, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April-July 2017.
The Norwegian artist Peder Balke is a solitary figure among the painters of the early nineteenth century. With historical hindsight, his work appears modern. Art historians compare his painting to that of Caspar David Friedrich and William Turner.[1] Even today, artists draw inspiration from his work.[2]
In this desolate scene, trees and mountains seem to part ways to admit crepuscular winter light. Like some of his fellow artists, Balke was drawn to untamed landscapes that he understood to be a characteristic feature of his homeland Norway. His landscape paintings are directly inspired by the rugged nature of northern Norway, which he first experienced in the autumn of 1832 when he traveled to the Finnmark region.[3] This trip was of key importance to his further development. The impressions and motifs gathered on that trip recur continually in his later work. He did not strive for topographical accuracy; instead, he endeavored to produce an exaggerated image of these desolate and uninhabited Norwegian landscapes.
In this composition and others, Balke deliberately relies on bold, loose brushwork – freely applied brown paint, essentially a mid-tone base coat, visible in the lower register, scuttling conventions of finish observed by most painters. This prioritization of painterly effects over verisimilitude did not always find favor with the art establishment. In an article in a 1843 edition of Morgenbladet, the eminent art critic Emil Tidemand scathingly wrote about Balke’s paintings: His whole production is merely the mark of a dirty palette handled without discrimination.[4]
The absence of an art academy in Norway gave Balke good reason to leave the country in 1828 and to enroll at the Stockholm Academy of Art. In 1830, he visited Copenhagen where the paintings of Johan Christian Dahl impressed him greatly. In the summers he continued to travel extensively in Norway and in 1832 embarked on his first journey to northern Norway. In 1835, he stayed in Dresden for several months with Dahl and Friedrich.[5] He travelled on to Paris where he came into contact with the Norwegian landscapist Thomas Fearnley.
Back in Norway in the early 1840s, he began to produce the first of his major works, although public recognition was largely lacking. Commissions were in short supply and in 1844 he resolved to leave Norway for Paris. He managed to obtain an audience with King Louis-Philippe who was eager to meet him – he had visited the north of Norway as a young man after the Revolution. Balke showed him the oil sketches of northern Norway he had brought with him to Paris. Louis-Philippe, impressed by their quality, selected a group to be worked up as large-format paintings. Twenty-six of these sketches are preserved and are now on permanent exhibition at the Louvre. Balke’s future as an artist seemed secure, but events in the run-up to the 1848 Revolution intervened. The King was forced to abdicate and this important commission was never brought to fruition. In late 1847, Balke was compelled to leave Paris. He returned briefly to Dresden, but decided to travel to London in the spring of 1849. Here, he was able to study the work of JMW Turner. This influence was almost certainly a major contributing factor to the growing radical tendencies in Balke’s style.[6] Balke settled in Norway permanently in 1850. He joined a socialist workers’ movement and took on a number of social and political commitments. He engaged in social projects and was involved in founding a community based on utopian ideals. Despite the persistent lack of public recognition, he continued to paint, producing the important body of work on which his reputation now rests.[7]
Balke’s work has been rediscovered in recent years. His achievement is now widely recognized and he has been honored with a number of solo exhibitions, the first of which was staged in Scandinavia at the Northern Norway Art Museum in Tromsø. This was followed by a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London held in 2014-15 and a third exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2017.[8]
- Important exhibitions include:Peder Balke 1804-1887, exhib. cat., Oslo, Kunstnernes Hus, 1954;Peder Balke. Ein Pionier der Moderne, Kunsthalle Krems, September 2008 - February 2009, Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, March - July 2009;Peder Balke. Vision and Revolution, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø, June - October 2014; The National Gallery, London, November 2014 - April 2015.
- Per Kirkeby, Peder Balke, Trick, Depth and Game, Hellerup 1996.
- The Finnmark region lies in the extreme north-east of the country and is the only part of Norway that borders on Russia. Balke traveled from Trondheim to Nordkap and farther eastward to Vardø and Vadsø. For his travel route, cf. Paintings by Peder Balke, exhib. cat. London, National Gallery, Tromsø, Northern Norway Art Museum, London 2014, p. 64.
- See <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/690288> (accessed 18 November 2020).
- In Dresden, Balke came under the influence of Friedrich and Dahl. Dahl was a fellow countryman and shared lodgings with Friedrich. Balke was drawn to Friedrich’s handling of nature and this was to have a lasting influence on his work. See Knut Ljøgodt, ‘In Quest of the Sublime: Peder Balke and the Romantic Discovery of the North’, in Paintings by Peder Balke, op. cit., p. 52.
- The first solo exhibition of Balke’s work in Britain was staged by the National Gallery in London and ran from 14 November 2014 to 15 April 2015.
- See Marit Ingeborg Lange, ‘Peder Balke: Vision and Revolution’, in Paintings by Peder Balke Paintings by Peder Balke, op. cit., pp. 6-41.
- Peder Balke: Painter of Northern Light, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10 April - 9 July 2017. See <http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/peder-balke> (accessed 18 November 2020).