a simpler choice of subjects, a more whole, more refined tone of
colour, and a more personal feeling v*f- le paysage intime. Munthe,
who after the sixties only left Düsseldorf to visit Norway, or to
take his frequently repeated journeys in Holland and France, can
hardly be said to be directly influenced by these French artists ; but
French landscape-painting has certainly exposed the subject-trickery
of the Düsseldorf school to him. He apparently contents himself
with the simplest subjects ; but thèse afford him the amplest
opportunity of revelling in soft, insinuating, delicately harmonised
tones. He delights particularly in show landscapes, more especially
the rainy, gray aspect of a'thaw', or the dusk of a winter evening
with the fading glow of the sun, or the faint glimmer of the
moon across the snowy plain; but he has also an affection for the
autumn landscape with its sweet, melancholy colour harmonies.
And a picture like his «Yinteraften ved den norske kyst» (Winter
Evening off the Norwegian Coast), which he presented to the
Norwegian National Gallery, is the work of a master.
With Ludvig Munthe, the Düsseldorf tradition in Norwegian
art was broken, and the way prepared for the naturalistic view.
And while Gude, in Carlsruhe, was aiming at a direct reproduction
of nature, elements were moving in the new school, of colourists
in Munich, that only needed an impulse from without to carry
them on to naturalism: The impulse came in the shape of a
breeze from the light-flooded landscape of the French open-air
painters. We now find the greater number of the Norwegian
artists gathered at Munich; and the most advanced of them afterwards
came to stand under the influence of the Paris school, and
the badge of naturalism. But before passing on to these artists, we
must mention a few who began their artistic career in Düsseldorf,
but who, sooner or later, allowed themselves to be influenced by
the new tendency. This was not the case with the conventional
R a s m u s s e n (bom 1842) and the figure-painter H a n s D a h l (bom
1849), '
A m a l d u s N i e l s e n (born 1838) went in 1860 to Düsseldorf,
and then bedaine Gude’s pupil in Carlsruhe, but since 1869 has
lived in Norway. His talent as a Norwegian landscape painter
is of thé most solid and genuine order. His province is the
fjord scenery of southern Norway — «Morgen ved havet efter
storm» (Morning by the Sea after a Storm), «Aftenstemning fra,
Hvalaerne» (Evening . on the Hvaler Islands), «Morgen ved en