Works
He was commissioned to do a number of historical paintings for Christiansborg Palace, as well as altarpieces. His best known works are portraits of the Copenhagen middle class, such as the "Nathanson family picture" (Det Nathansonske Familiebillede), 1818, and the official portrait of Frederick VI (Frederik VI). In spite of his abilities in this genre, his career in portraiture was short-lived, due to the competition he received from then popular Christian Albrecht Jensen.
Marine paintings were another genre he developed with great interest. He had a passion for ships, and sailed around the Skagerrak, the Kattegat, the North Sea, and as far as the English Channel at the age of 56. The experience of sailing out on the open seas, gave new dimension to his marine paintings, that until that point tended to be calm depictions. Now there was more attention given to movement and to waves.
The Admiralty in 1819 had granted him free access to the Copenhagen Naval Station (Holmen), thus giving him occasion to view the many ships – a favorite motive in his paintings. During summer, the sailors would practice swimming here – of course all naked. This gave Eckersberg a unique opportunity to watch men in a state of complete undress and to make an artistic evaluation of their physical build. He could thus here select the models whom he needed for his paintings with motives from Greek or Roman antiquity.
But his biggest contribution to painting was through his professorship at the Academy. He revitalized teaching by taking students out into the field, where they were challenged to do studies from nature. In this way it was he who introduced direct study from nature into Danish art. He also encouraged his students to develop their individual strengths, thus creating unique styles. He developed an increasing interest in perspective on account of his marine paintings. He wrote a dissertation on the subject called "Linear perspective used in the art of painting" (Linearperspektiven, anvendt paa Malerkunsten), 1841, and taught classes on the subject at the Academy. He made a small number of etchings that combine daily life observations with classical, harmonious principles of composition. This led the way to the characteristic manner in which Golden Age painters portrayed the common, everyday life.
There is a selfportrait from 1803, a bust of him by Thorvaldsen from 1816 and a portrait by Marstrand from 1836.
Read more about this topic: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Famous quotes containing the word works:
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—Clive Bell (1881–1962)
“The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“We thus worked our way up this river, gradually adjusting our thoughts to novelties, beholding from its placid bosom a new nature and new works of men, and, as it were with increasing confidence, finding nature still habitable, genial, and propitious to us; not following any beaten path, but the windings of the river, as ever the nearest way for us. Fortunately, we had no business in this country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)