Masterpieces of Danish art

Evening Play in Svanninge Hills is a monumental painting, where cogent and sensitive qualities play with lines in both landscape and firmament, and combines with the light of the sky against the hilly landscapes’ dark silhouettes. The sun is setting into …

The Funen painter H.A. Brendekilde’s masterpiece “Worn Out” is just the thing for a tragic cover story. A day-labourer has collapsed in his field. Next to him a woman is screaming of helplessness. The picture was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of…

There appear to be two opposing forces in Julius Paulsen's paintings. On the one hand, a tendency towards an almost abstract, sculptural exploration of mass and space and, on the other, a purely colouristic accentuation of the surface. The Self-portra…

The work is a landscape painting, but at the same time a portrait, propably depicting the artist’s wife Agnes Slott-Møller. The atmosphere in this painting is characterized by an unusual use of colour, not least in the woman’s prominent red cape. Harald …

In his large painting A Christening, Michael Ancher portrays the christening of his daughter Helga, surrounded by godfathers. All the godfathers were members of the artistic community in Skagen; Ancher wanted the “spiritual godfathers” of his daughter pre…

Sensitivity, warmth and mutual tenderness permeate this family portrait depicting the artist’s father, Amilcare, brother, Astrubale, and sister, Minerva. The family relationship is weighted higher than the figurative and formal characteristics. The sponta…

P.S. Krøyer was inspired to paint this evocative picture in 1892 at a dinner party in his summer residence in Skagen. After dinner, the guests went down to the beach, and Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer went for a walk along the shore. The picture is an exce…

The sculpture shows a warrior in a contra post with his head slightly bent towards the ground and his arms in a straight position upwards. He is holding a person who seams dead and who’s body form an inverted “U”. Both men are naked and the only accessory…

Abildgaard's Nightmare shows two young ladies in the nude lying on a bed. Outside the moon is shining on a dark blue sky at night. One lady is on the side showing us her back in what resembles a deep sleep with her hands tucked in under her head. The …

Formerly, young Danish artists had been unable to receive instruction in painting at the Academy which only offered courses in drawing. However, with inspiration from France, in 1822 a school of painting was established which made up for these shortcoming…

This sculpture is Thorvaldsen’s breakthrough work. Jason was begun in Rome in 1802; finished in plaster and commissioned in marble by the rich English patron of the arts, Thomas Hope, in 1803; but only delivered 25 years later. This sculpture is Thorvalds…

Kristian Zahrtmann (1843–1917) was the first in a line of great native painters from Bornholm. Although Zahrtmann settled in Copenhagen and spent most of his summers in Italy’s mountain village of Civita d’Antino, he maintained strong ties with the island…

As the grandparents of the artist lived near by Kalundborg he knew this landscape very well. Although Denmark is just a small country he loved his native land for its history, its gently undulating landscape and impressively long coastline.

Tupi woman holding a child, with a basket on her head. The woman is wearing a skirt of European fabric and wears her hair short in front with two long braids bound with a cord. On her right arm she carries a water calabash and in the basket on her head ca…