Danish amsts on the beaches of Skagen {northernmost Jutland) and in new avant-garde institutions in Copenhagen embrace modernity and the new painting emanating from Paris and elsewhere while continuing to grapple with the theme of Danish identity.Toward the close of the century,, expressing sensinve and sometimes ironic responses to Danish cultural history and topography.

The extraordinary outburst of artistic energy that occurred in Denmark between 1790 and 1910 has rarely been rivalled.Within three generations of the founding of the Royal Academy,Danish painters developed a national school of art that matched the artistic cenrres of France, Germany and Britain. The range of outstanding works created by Nicolai Abildgaard, Jens Juel,Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Christen Kobke, P. S. Kroyer and Vilhelm Hammershoi reflect and refract in unique and compelling ways the great stylistic tendencies of European art of the nineteenth century, including Classicism, Romanticism,Impressionism and Symbolism. Yet surprisingly, there have been few studies of this vital school of art. That deficit is now corrected with the publication of this landmark study of Danish art.

Preceded by a Neoclassical flowering in the Danish Academy, the years between 1810 and 1850 would come to be called Denmark's Golden Age. Bracketed roughly by the Napoleonic Wars and the European-wide political turmoil of 1848. the first half of the nineteenth century would see the emergence of a generation of artists trained in Denmark who also studied in Rome and then returned home to paint the topography and monuments of Denmark. In ambitious Golden Age works, such as Christen Kobke's glowing Frederiksborg Castle in the Fvenin Zig 1835,artists depicted with a rigorous attention to detail scenes bathed in a penetrating light which even then were understood to signify the Danish temperament of sobriety, integrity and resolve.The second half of the century would see Danish amsts on the beaches of Skagen {northernmost Jutland) and in new avant-garde institutions in Copenhagen embrace modernity and the new painting emanating from Paris and elsewhere while continuing to grapple with the theme of Danish identity.Toward the close of the century, the historically self-conscious work ofVilhelm Hammershoi and others would increasingly reflect inwardly turned modes of painting, expressing sensinve and sometimes ironic responses to Danish cultural history and topography.

In recent yeats, exhibitions on the Golden Age of Danish painting and the "rediscovery' of Vilhelm Hammershoi have whetted a growing interest in and taste for Danish painting of the nineteenth century. Illustrated with a comprehensive selection of over two hundred key works of art, drawn from the leading Danish collections. Zn Anot/Jer ZiX~t is the only book available in English that surveys Danish painting across the nineteenth century. Written by a major scholar in the field, and featuring all the icons of the Danish Golden Age, this volume is an essential addition to all art libraries, personal or institutional.With 255 illustrations, 225 in colour.

INTRODUCTION

The Making of a Danish Tradition

The Royal Academy in the Golden Age

Rome as an International Academy

Picturing Denmark in the Golden Age

Skagen and the Modern Breakthrough

The Free Exhibition and the Psychological Breakthrough

Hammershoi and Urban Places

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

CREDITS

INDEX