Large painting with Norwegian Fjord landscape by famous German landscape painter Georg Anton Rasmussen (1842 - 1914).
Rasmussen received his first artistic lessons in Bergen from Johan Ludvig Losting and Anders Askevold. In 1863 he was a student of Frederik Rohde in Copenhagen and attended the local art academy. He studied under Oswald Achenbach at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1864 to 1867, where he was also heavily influenced by Hans Gude. The variety of his landscape motifs decreased after 1870, probably with a view to the tourists who preferred to buy fjord pictures. Alongside Adelsteen Normann and Anders Askevold, he became one of the most productive fjord painters and had his greatest successes in Germany. Nevertheless, like his teacher Achenbach, he knew how to never repeat himself despite similar motifs and how to give each picture its own note.
From 1868 to 1900 he is noted as a member of the local artists´ association Malkasten. In 1899 he moved to Berlin.
After 1900 he adapted himself to the spatula technique and strong colors used by Adelsteen Normann.
He shows his fjords against the light with cloudy skies and animated by boats of the local everyday world, in a fresh, almost impressionistic painting style. In the foreground are mostly people and rowing boats, which he painted with as much skill as the mountains, the sky and the water. His pictures were often copied and distributed as oil prints. Some art historians today are of the opinion that his importance as a painter is minor because he did not join any Secession movement.
Works by him can be found in the Bergen Picture Gallery, the State Art Museum in Copenhagen, the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, the Dresden Picture Gallery and the Düsseldorf Art Museum.
Literature: "General Artist´s Lexicon " by Thieme/Becker, Leipzig, XXVIII, 1934, 23 .
Inscription: signed and dated 1894 lower left.
Technique: framed oil on canvas.
Measurements: unframed : w. 49 2/3" x h. 30 1/3" (126 x 77 cm); framed w. 53 1/2" x h. 34 1/4" (136 x 87 cm).
Condition: in very good condition.. |