• J.C. Dahl

  1788-1857

Norwegian Mountain Landscape with Waterfall

• Production Date

  1821

• Type of Work / Object

  Painting > Landscape Painting

• Location

  • Not on display

• Inventory Number

  B184

• Catalogue Number

  B184

• Catalogue Level / Collection

  Thorvaldsen's Collections > Collection of Paintings (B)

Explanation

• The painting was a work commissioned by Thorvaldsen, who was an eager collector of works by Dahl when Dahl was in Rome 7 February – 27 July 1821. No other painter interested Thorvaldsen like the Norwegian-born Dahl, and nor did he acquire so many works by any other artist. In his catalogue (a small notebook in which he listed his works from the period 1817-23), Dahl describes the picture as a large cabinet piece representing a very fertile Norwegian mountain region with a waterfall. The rushing water is the most dramatic element in the sombre picture, and one can almost hear it. White and foaming, the water is rushing between great boulders in the foreground. Its restless, diagonal path through the picture is long: from the mountains in the background on the left to the edge of the picture at the bottom right. But the composition is held in check by large, symmetrically placed rocky areas each on its own side of the picture and by the two trees in the middle ground – an oak and a birch – which indicate the symmetry axis by virtue of their oblique position.

Additional Catalogue Information