FEARNLEY, Thomas
(b. 1802 Frederikshald, d. 1842 München)
Norwegian painter. He was descended from a Yorkshire merchant who had settled in Norway in 1753. In 1819 he went into business but at the same time entered the Kongelige Tegneskole in Christiania (now Oslo) and received further training at the art colleges in Copenhagen (1821-23) and Stockholm (1823-27), where Karl XIV commissioned work from him.
Fearnley spent much of his life travelling. In Norway in the summer of 1826 he met Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, with whom he later studied in Dresden (1829-30), learning especially to observe nature. After two years in Munich (1830-32), Fearnley’s style was also influenced by the local school of landscape painters, which stressed more atmospheric effects.
