View of Dresden at Full Moon

Dahl came from Bergen in Norway. He visited Dresden in 1818 at the end of his student days in Copenhagen as part of a lengthier tour, which ended with him taking up residence in the city on the Elbe. He became the second great master of the Romantic landscape movement in Dresden beside Caspar David Friedrich.

Dahl’s nocturnal panorama of the famous buildings on the Elbe captures the unique atmosphere of Dresden, the artistic and royal capital, in a most striking manner. This painting, which numbers among Dahl’s most famous works, must be seen as a homage to the genius loci of the city he had adopted many years earlier.

The view is seen from the same place at the right at the right bank of the river from where Bernardo Bellotto’s view (also in the Gemäldegalerie) was taken.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 6 minutes):

Franz Schubert: An den Mond (To the Moon) (Goethe) D 296