Nicolai Abildgaard
06 Mar - 14 Jun 2009
NICOLAI ABILDGAARD
"The Teacher of Friedrich and Runge"
6.3.2009 - 14.6.2009
Kuppelsaal and Room 118
For the first time in Germany, the exhibition presents 100 works by the Danish neoclassical and Romantic artist Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809). Abildgaard was Denmark’s first important history painter; he was, however, expressly critical of absolutism. As a professor at the Art Academy in Copenhagen he exerted a great influence on many of his pupils, including Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge. Abildgaard’s paintings, which were influenced as much by the poems of Ossian as by antiquity, reflect the time of new departures and disruptions around 1800. Organised in cooperation with the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the exhibition reveals the thematic complexity of Abildgaard’s paintings and drawings, and places particular emphasis on the innovative and politically reformist aspects of his work, awareness of which has grown considerably as a result of recent research.
"The Teacher of Friedrich and Runge"
6.3.2009 - 14.6.2009
Kuppelsaal and Room 118
For the first time in Germany, the exhibition presents 100 works by the Danish neoclassical and Romantic artist Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809). Abildgaard was Denmark’s first important history painter; he was, however, expressly critical of absolutism. As a professor at the Art Academy in Copenhagen he exerted a great influence on many of his pupils, including Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge. Abildgaard’s paintings, which were influenced as much by the poems of Ossian as by antiquity, reflect the time of new departures and disruptions around 1800. Organised in cooperation with the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the exhibition reveals the thematic complexity of Abildgaard’s paintings and drawings, and places particular emphasis on the innovative and politically reformist aspects of his work, awareness of which has grown considerably as a result of recent research.