Two Belfries at Sunset, Copenhagen

Naturalism in Germany and northern Europe showed a similar tendency to revise Dutch seventeenth-century patterns, infusing them with the vividness that came from making studies outdoors. The most prominent naturalistic artist in central Germany was the Norwegian Johann Christian Clausen Dahl. Dahl studied at the Copenhagen Academy and then, in 1820, went to Dresden, where he became a close friend of Caspar David Friedrich, sharing a house with him. Dahl adopted much of Friedrich’s dramatic imagery, but he worked in an increasingly naturalistic style and even encouraged Friedrich for a time to work outdoors. His pictures have a freshness which brought him considerably popularity in his own lifetime.