Birch Tree in a Storm

Johan Christian Dahl

1849 · Oil on paper, laid down on cardboard · European Paintings

This is one of Dahl’s most iconic subjects, long seen as emblematic of Norway’s patient endurance of foreign rule. Although based on a nature study Dahl made in Germany in 1823 (now in the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo), it was intended to evoke the landscape of Norway. The image of the single, heroic tree stems from seventeenth-century prototypes by Jacob van Ruisdael, who was in turn deeply influenced by his fellow Dutchman Allart van Everdingen, the first painter of Norway’s wild scenery. There is a significantly larger version of this picture, also painted in 1849, in the KODE Art Museums of Bergen.

Artist

Johan Christian Dahl

Date

1849

Medium

Oil on paper, laid down on cardboard

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Thaw Collection, Jointly Owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2009