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Lot Essay
Peder Balke is one of the most innovative and original artists within the distinguished group of artists who have come to define 19th-century Scandinavian painting as we know it today. Part of the first generation of Norwegian painters following in the footsteps of J. C. Dahl, Balke’s paintings straddle Romanticism and Modernism in a way no other artist did, leading to critical rejection during his lifetime and his art being largely forgotten until its rediscovery in the 20th century. Today, we recognize in Balke’s sublime landscapes a truly unique voice, rendering the dramatic landscape of northern Norway not topographically, but emotionally. Balke’s singular anti-academic technique, which at times reduced elements of his compositions to almost total abstraction, redoubled the effect of nature’s majesty, rendering the experience of standing in the landscape for the viewer more than just depicting it.
In this, Balke was following in the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich, who exhorted artists that they should not paint what they saw before them, but instead what they saw within themselves. ‘A landscape painting should be more than a record of external reality; it should portray the soul in an otherworldly dimension’ (W. Hoffman, 2010, quoted in K. Ljøgodt, in Quest of the Sublime, Peder Balke and the Romantic Discovery of the North, 2014-2015, p. 46). The 19th century was the time of the great polar expeditions, so it is perhaps no surprise that landscape painters, particularly those from Scandinavia, turned to their native landscape for inspiration in their work. Friedrich too was captivated by the idea of the polar regions, and his Sea of Ice (Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1823-1824) was owned by Dahl, Balke’s friend and teacher.
Balke was one of the few artists painting scenes inspired by the polar north who had actually ventured north of the arctic circle firsthand, in fact he set a record for how far north he traveled. On a visit to Finnmark in Norway, the northernmost point of Continental Europe, in 1832, Balke found the landscape motifs to which he would return for the rest of his career. His paintings are infused with magical light inspired by his experience of the midnight sun there. The power and dramatic quality of his compositions reflect his first-hand experience of extreme weather conditions which he described as, ‘an impression that not only took hold of me in the intoxication of the moment, but even had a decisive influence on my whole future life... for in these northern regions it is the natural beauties that play the leading role, while the living children of nature, the people, occupy only a subordinate position to them’ (translated from D. Buchhardt, Peder Balke. Ein Pionier der Moderne, exh. cat., Krems and Copenhagen, 2008-2009, p. 10).
The present work certainly owes a debt to Friedrich, particularly works like his Spruce Thicket in the Snow (1827-28, Neue Pinakothek, Munich), Northern Landscape, Spring (circa 1825, National Gallery of Art, Washington) and his Winter Landscape (1811, Staatliches Museum Schwerin). Friedrich was one of the first artists to portray winter landscapes as stark and still, in which ‘no man has yet set his foot,’ as Hermann Beenken described. Balke’s painting, whose title translates to Spring Thaw, shows a winter landscape dominated by tall conifers at center with water just beginning to course through a creek after a long winter, its banks still coated in ice. The painting is suffused with a wonderful blue glow which suggests the polar dusk, and the hazy quality nearer to ground level gives the slightest sense of a mist created by the warmer air temperature interacting with the snowy ground. The unusual washes of light brown paint applied behind the central trees suggests a light source, perhaps the moon, there, a startlingly experimental technique typical of Balke. The snow-covered rocks in the foreground and some of the trees in the background at center become abstract in the notational way in which they are painted. As ever, Balke captures the essence of the scene–the rushing water, the haunting empty beauty, and the hazy atmosphere closing in on the viewer–as it feels above all else.
In this, Balke was following in the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich, who exhorted artists that they should not paint what they saw before them, but instead what they saw within themselves. ‘A landscape painting should be more than a record of external reality; it should portray the soul in an otherworldly dimension’ (W. Hoffman, 2010, quoted in K. Ljøgodt, in Quest of the Sublime, Peder Balke and the Romantic Discovery of the North, 2014-2015, p. 46). The 19th century was the time of the great polar expeditions, so it is perhaps no surprise that landscape painters, particularly those from Scandinavia, turned to their native landscape for inspiration in their work. Friedrich too was captivated by the idea of the polar regions, and his Sea of Ice (Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1823-1824) was owned by Dahl, Balke’s friend and teacher.
Balke was one of the few artists painting scenes inspired by the polar north who had actually ventured north of the arctic circle firsthand, in fact he set a record for how far north he traveled. On a visit to Finnmark in Norway, the northernmost point of Continental Europe, in 1832, Balke found the landscape motifs to which he would return for the rest of his career. His paintings are infused with magical light inspired by his experience of the midnight sun there. The power and dramatic quality of his compositions reflect his first-hand experience of extreme weather conditions which he described as, ‘an impression that not only took hold of me in the intoxication of the moment, but even had a decisive influence on my whole future life... for in these northern regions it is the natural beauties that play the leading role, while the living children of nature, the people, occupy only a subordinate position to them’ (translated from D. Buchhardt, Peder Balke. Ein Pionier der Moderne, exh. cat., Krems and Copenhagen, 2008-2009, p. 10).
The present work certainly owes a debt to Friedrich, particularly works like his Spruce Thicket in the Snow (1827-28, Neue Pinakothek, Munich), Northern Landscape, Spring (circa 1825, National Gallery of Art, Washington) and his Winter Landscape (1811, Staatliches Museum Schwerin). Friedrich was one of the first artists to portray winter landscapes as stark and still, in which ‘no man has yet set his foot,’ as Hermann Beenken described. Balke’s painting, whose title translates to Spring Thaw, shows a winter landscape dominated by tall conifers at center with water just beginning to course through a creek after a long winter, its banks still coated in ice. The painting is suffused with a wonderful blue glow which suggests the polar dusk, and the hazy quality nearer to ground level gives the slightest sense of a mist created by the warmer air temperature interacting with the snowy ground. The unusual washes of light brown paint applied behind the central trees suggests a light source, perhaps the moon, there, a startlingly experimental technique typical of Balke. The snow-covered rocks in the foreground and some of the trees in the background at center become abstract in the notational way in which they are painted. As ever, Balke captures the essence of the scene–the rushing water, the haunting empty beauty, and the hazy atmosphere closing in on the viewer–as it feels above all else.