View from Stalheim (
Norwegian: Fra Stalheim) is an 1842
oil painting by
Johan Christian Dahl of the mountainous view from
Stalheim,
Voss,
Hordaland. It is a major work of Romantic nationalism and has become a national icon. It is regarded as one of Dahl's best works.
Description
The painting shows the view from the peak at Stalheim over the
Nærøy Valley towards the
sugarloaf-shaped peak of Jordalsnuten[1][2] in late afternoon sunshine, framed by peaks and a rainbow. The sun shines on a small village near the centre. Dahl has clearly delineated figures and buildings even in the distance, creating "a world in miniature".[3] One of his purposes was
realism; the other was to capture the glory and magnificence of the mountains, and associated with that, of his country's culture.[3][4][5] In this evocation of grandeur the painting prefigures later US landscapes, in particular
Church's Rainy Season in the Tropics (1866), which has a similar crowning rainbow.[3][6] The rainbow itself, a symbol of reconciliation, peace, and in Christianity of
God's grace,[7] was also frequently used by
Joseph Anton Koch and by Dahl's friend and associate
Caspar David Friedrich.[8]
History
Dahl began work on the painting in 1836 and completed it in 1842.[9][10] It is based on two pencil and watercolour sketches he had made from the
Gudvangen road in July 1826[11][12][13] during his first visit to the high mountain regions of Norway. The final version is close to the studies in both composition and details, including the sunlight highlighting the village;[3] but Dahl has intensified the imagery by narrowing the valley, giving more prominence to the Jordalsnuten peak and less to the reappearance of the river from the shadows.[4]
Dahl had trouble with the painting and avoided similarly large works after its completion.[14]
The painting is regarded as one of Dahl's best,[16][17] perhaps his most successful realisation of his aim of depicting the mountains both realistically and as national symbols.[3][5] It has become a national icon.[6][7] Other painters have also depicted the scene,[1] and even more than his other Norwegian landscapes, this one drove tourists to visit the site: the luxury hotel built at Stalheim in 1885 is attributable to it.[4]
^The Making of a Land: Geology of Norway, ed. Ivar B. Ramberg et al., Trondheim: Norsk Geologisk Forening, 2008,
ISBN9788292394427,
p. 111.
^
abcdeTorsten Gunnarsson, tr. Nancy Adler, Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1998,
ISBN9780300070415, pp. 90–94.
^
abcSusanne Wittekind, "Natur, Volk und Geschichte. Die künstlerische Konstruktion Norwegens in der Landschaftsmalerei Johan Christian Claussen Dahls (1788–1857)", in Die Lesbarkeit der Romantik: Material, Medium, Diskurs, ed. Erich Kleinschmidt, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009, pp. 309–335, p. 328 (in German).
^
abRonald G. Popperwell, Norway, Nations of the modern world, New York: Prager, 1972,
OCLC514904,
p. 51.
^
abArne Neset, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture, American University Studies Series XIX,, General Literature, 36, New York: Lang, 2009,
ISBN978-1433102974,
p. 58.
^Susanne Wittekind, "Natur, Volk und Geschichte. Die künstlerische Konstruktion Norwegens in der Landschaftsmalerei Johan Christian Claussen Dahls (1788–;1857)", in Die Lesbarkeit der Romantik: Material, Medium, Diskurs, ed. Erich Kleinschmidt, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009, p. 326 (in German).
^"Nature's way": Romantic Landscapes from Norway: Oil Studies, Watercolours and Drawings by Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) and Thomas Fearnley (1802–1842), ed. Jane Munro, exhibition catalogue, Manchester: Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester / Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 1993,
ISBN9780904454307,
p. 19.
^Caspar David Friedrich, Johan Christian Dahl: Zeichnungen der Romantik, ed. Kornelia von Berswordt-Wallrabe, exhibition catalogue, Schwerin: Staatliches Museum, 2001,
ISBN9783861060673,
p. 19(in German).
^Darkness and Light: The Proceedings of the Oslo Symposium 25.–28. August 1994, ed. Roger Erlandsen and Vegard S. Halvorsen, Oslo: National Institute for Historical Photography and Norwegian Society for the History of Photography in association with European Society for the History of Photography, 1995,
ISBN9788299073554,
p. 46, note 5.
^Andreas Aubert, Professor Dahl: et stykke av aarhundredets kunst- og kulturhistorie, Christiania: Aschehoug, 1893,
OCLC27733743,
p. 224(in Norwegian)
^
abAndreas Aubert, Den nordiske naturfølelse og professor Dahl: hans kunst og dens stilling i aarhundredets utvikling, Christiania: Aschehoug, 1894,
OCLC27821682,
pp. 151–52(in Norwegian).
^Jens Thiis, "Johan Christian Dahl", The American-Scandinavian Review 26 (1938) 5–21,
p. 20.
^Carl G. Laurin, Emil Hannover and Jens Thiis,
Scandinavian Art, Scandinavian monographs 5, New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation / London: Milford, 1922,
OCLC1572380, p. 443.