Ditlev Blunck | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 7 January 1853 54) | (aged
Nationality | German, Danish |
Education | Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich |
Known for | Painting |
Movement | Danish Golden Age |
Ditlev Conrad Blunck (22 June 1798 – 7 January 1853) was a Danish-German painter associated with the Danish Golden Age during the first half of the 19th century.
Blunck was born in 1798 in Münsterdorf in Holstein, at that time a duchy with a largely German-speaking populace ruled by Denmark. In 1814 he began his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen as a student of C.A. Lorentzen and C.W. Eckersberg. He was trained concurrently with fellow students Wilhelm Bendz, Ernst Meyer, and Albert Küchler. Presumably dissatisfied with the Danish Academy, Blunck moved in 1818 to Munich and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts to train in history painting. He studied in Bavaria for two years before returning to Copenhagen.
Back in Denmark, Blunck became a student of the recently appointed J. L. Lund, a Romantic historical painter who was to become a major influence on his development. Thus, it was also mostly history painting that marked Blunck's early work. Later, through genre painting, Blunck became representative of the kind of everyday realism that was to appear in Danish art in the mid-1820s.
Lund's influence grew particularly clear during Blunck's stay in Germany beginning in 1828. In Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, he became acquainted with Lund's artist-friends, including the famed Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.
Blunck's sojourns abroad also brought him repeatedly to Rome, where he spent almost ten years. Here, he joined the group of Danish artists around Bertel Thorvaldsen and produced several of his major paintings, including Danish Artists in the Roman Inn La Gensola (1837). Deeply influenced by the works of Johann Friedrich Overbeck in Rome, Blunck began to devote himself to religious motifs and developed a painting style that was strongly influenced by the Nazarene movement, unusual among Danish painters.
In 1840, he was expelled from Denmark due to homosexual acts. [1] As a result, he left the country, and after visits to his native region and to Munich, he settled in Vienna in 1841. His criminal record and his decision to take up arms against Denmark in the First Schleswig War (1848-1852) made him persona non grata in Denmark, and his reputation has suffered to the present day. Nonetheless, he was commissioned by King Christian VIII of Denmark to paint the four-part cycle "The Ages of Man" (1840–45) for the Royal Painting Collection.
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Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg was a Danish painter. He was born in Blåkrog in the Duchy of Schleswig. He went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting, and is referred to as the "Father of Danish painting".
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Johan Ludwig Gebhard Lund was a Danish painter, born in Kiel, Duchy of Holstein, to master painter Hans Giewert Lund and his wife Maria Magdalena Christina Bremer. An adherent of romanticism, he is known for his history paintings.
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Johan Thomas Lundbye was a Danish painter and graphic artist, known for his animal and landscape paintings. He was inspired by Niels Laurits Høyen's call to develop nationalistic art through depictions of Denmark's characteristic landscapes; the historical buildings and monuments, and the country's simple, rural people. He became one of his generation's national romantic painters, along with P. C. Skovgaard and Lorenz Frølich, to regularly depict the landscape of Zealand.
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Christian August II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, commonly known as Christian, Duke of Augustenborg, was a Danish/German prince and statesman. During the 1850s and 1860s, he was a claimant to first duke of the whole provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, and a candidate to become king of Denmark following the death of King Frederick VII. He was the father-in-law of Princess Helena and the paternal grandfather of Augusta Victoria, German Empress and wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Karl, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg was Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg from 1831 to 1878. Karl was the eldest son of Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Kassel and an elder brother of Christian IX of Denmark.
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