About Hans Dahl

Hans Dahl

Hans Dahl’s talent artistic ability was clear when he was 16 years old. But, he could not get any artistic training until after his service in the army. Hans Dahl was educated as an officer and became a lieutenant in 1871. After his discharge from the army, he apprenticed with Johan Fredrik Eckersberg and Knud Bergslien. He went to Karlsruhe, where he studied under Hans Fredrik Gude and Wilhelm Riefstahl and after that to Düsseldorf, where his instructors included Eduard von Gebhardt and Wilhelm Sohn. His art became associated with the Düsseldorf School of Painting, which was characterized by detailed yet still whimsical landscapes.
Dahl had his first show in Düsseldorf in 1876 and lived in Düsseldorf until 1888, after which he moved to Berlin. Almost every summer, he returned to Norway.
Hans Dahl resisted the transition in art from Romanticism to Modernism. In the 1890s a new school of art emerged, and artists like Dahl were not very popular in the leading circles in the capital. He was criticized by the art historian Jens This and by fellow artists especially by Christian Krohg, who was one of the leading figures in the move from Romanticism to Naturalism which characteristic of Norwegian art in this period. Throughout his life, he increased his range of themes, and his vibrant colors and charming portrayals of young Norwegian girls in their native costumes on the hills overlooking the fjords have always been popular.