The Glacier, Jostedalsbreen

The Glacier, Jostedalsbreen

1840-tal

Oil on canvas

Mått 127,00 x 173,00 x 3,50 cm Ram 161,50 x 208,00 x 9,80 cm

GKM 0854

Gift of Knut J:son Mark, 1928

In Balke’s magnificent mountainscape The Glacier, Jostedalsbreen from the 1840s, we see three rowing boats floating on the calm water below a mighty glacier. The looming cliffs are reflected in the water. Beyond them rises a mighty mountain range as a backdrop. The glacier’s vertical walls of ice contrast with the brown rock walls. The people and their boats seem small and fragile compared to the magnificent landscape. In Dahl’s more naturalistic depiction of the same scene from 1844, Nature appears less intimidating. It becomes clear just how much Balke had exaggerated the proportions to create a sublime effect. This is landscape as theatre; more an idea projected through the landscape than a credible study of Nature. Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014

Tortsen Gunnarsson, Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press, New Haven och London 1998, p. 103, ill. p. 104 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 110, ill. p. 108-109 Arktisen Lumo, Peder Balke. Förtrollad av Arktis/The Spell of the Arctic, Konstmuseet Sinebrychoff, Helsingfors, 2023., ill. p. 47, 118