Christian Krohg
Encyclopedia
- For the politician of the same name, see Christian Krohg (government minister)Christian Krohg (government minister)Christian Krohg was a Norwegian councillor of state without ministry in 1814, member of the Council of State Division in Stockholm 1815–1816, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Finance in 1816, Minister of Education and Church Affairs 1816–1817 as well as head of Ministry of the Police in...
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Christian Krohg (August 13, 1852 – October 16, 1925), was a Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
naturalist
Naturalism (art)
Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...
painter, illustrator, author and journalist.
Life and career
Krohg was the son of lawyer and statesman Georg Anton Krohg (1817–73) and the grandson of Christian KrohgChristian Krohg (government minister)
Christian Krohg was a Norwegian councillor of state without ministry in 1814, member of the Council of State Division in Stockholm 1815–1816, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Finance in 1816, Minister of Education and Church Affairs 1816–1817 as well as head of Ministry of the Police in...
(1777–1828) who was a government minister. Krohg studied law at the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
(then Christiania
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
) (1869–73) and was educated in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
at the Baden School of Art
Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters...
in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
under Hans Gude
Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters...
, and later worked in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
from 1881 to 1882.
Inspired by the ideas of the realists
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
he chose motives primarily from everyday life – often its darker or socially inferior sides. Particularly well known are his pictures of prostitutes, his novel Albertine
Albertine (1886 novel)
Albertine is a novel written in 1886 by Norwegian painter and writer Christian Krohg.The novel is set in Norway's capital, Christiania, and deals with the life of the unmarried seamstress Albertine, who is eventually forced into prostitution due to the social system of the time. The book was...
from 1886 is about this theme. The book caused a scandal when first published, and was confiscated by the police. (See also related painting in the gallery below).
Krohg’s powerful and straightforward style made him one of the leading figures in the transition from romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
to naturalism
Naturalism (art)
Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...
, characteristic of Norwegian art in this period. Through his periodic residence at Skagen
Skagen
Skagen is a projection of land and a town, with a population of 8,515 , in Region Nordjylland on the northernmost tip of Vendsyssel-Thy, a part of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark...
, where he arrived for the first time in 1879, he had great influence on Anna
Anna Ancher
Anna Ancher was a Danish artist associated with the Skagen Painters, an artists' colony in the very north of Jutland.-Background:...
and Michael Ancher, and provided early support to Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
.
Krohg was the founding editor of the Bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
journal, Impressionisten
Impressionisten
Impressionisten was a Norwegian periodical, published by people belonging to the Bohemianist group in Kristiania.It was first published in December 1886. The first editor-in-chief was Christian Krohg, and the most prolific contributor was Hans Jæger, although the latter was imprisoned during parts...
, in 1886. He then became a journalist in the Oslo newspaper Verdens Gang
Verdens Gang (1868-1923 newspaper)
Verdens Gang is a former Norwegian newspaper, issued in Oslo from 1868 to 1923.It was established as a weekly magazine in 1868, later expanded to three issues a week, and was issued daily from 1885. It was the most widespread political newspaper in Norway for many years, and had considerable...
from 1890 to 1910, where he wrote remarkable portrait interviews. Later he became a professor director at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts|The Norwegian Academy of Arts (Statens Kunstakademi) 1909-1925.
He was married to artist Oda Krohg
Oda Krohg
Oda Krohg, born Othilia Pauline Christine Lasson , was a Norwegian painter, and the wife of her teacher and colleague Christian Krohg....
and was the father of muralist Per Lasson Krohg. There are notable paintings by Christian Krohg in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and the Skagens Museum
Skagen
Skagen is a projection of land and a town, with a population of 8,515 , in Region Nordjylland on the northernmost tip of Vendsyssel-Thy, a part of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark...
in Denmark.