Hans Gude
Encyclopedia
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. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Romanticism.
Gude's artistic career was not one marked with drastic change and revolution, but was instead a steady progression that slowly reacted to general trends in the artistic world. Gude's early works are of idyllic, sun-drenched Norwegian landscapes which present a romantic, yet still realistic view of his country. Around 1860 Gude began painting seascape
s and other coastal subjects. Gude had difficulty with figure drawing initially and so collaborated with Adolph Tidemand
in some of his painting, drawing the landscape himself and allowing Tidemand to paint the figures. Later Gude would work specifically on his figures while at Karlsruhe, and so began populating his paintings with them. Gude initially painted primarily with oils
in a studio, basing his works on studies he'd done earlier in the field. However, as Gude matured as a painter he began to paint en plein air
and espoused the merits of doing so to his students. Gude would go on to work with watercolors later in life as well as gouache
in an effort to keep his art constantly fresh and evolving, and although these were never as well received by the public as his oil paintings, his fellow artists greatly admired them.
Gude spent forty-five years as an art professor and so he played an important roll in the development of Norwegian art by acting as a mentor to three generations of Norwegian artists. Young Norwegian artists flocked to wherever Gude was teaching, first at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf
and later at the School of Art in Karlsruhe
. Gude also served as a professor at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1880 to 1901, although he attracted few Norwegians to the Berlin Academy because by this time Berlin had been surpassed in prestige in the eyes of young Norwegian artists by Paris.
Over the course of his lifetime Gude won numerous medals, was inducted as an honorary member in to many art academies, and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav.
in 1825 the son of Ove Gude, a judge
, and Marie Elisabeth Brandt.
Gude began his artistic career with private lessons from Johannes Flintoe
, and by 1838 he was attending Flintoe's evening classes at the Royal School of Drawing in Christiania. In the autumn of 1841 Johan Sebastian Welhaven
suggested that the young Gude should be sent to Düsseldorf to further his education in the arts.
— a professor in landscape painting
— who advised him to give up his ambitions of being a painter and to return to his regular studies before it was too late. Gude was rejected by the academy, but attracted the attention of Andreas Achenbach
who provided him with private lessons.
class. At the time figure painting was considered a more prestigious genre than landscape painting as it was thought only through painting the human body could true beauty be expressed.
Gude, along with most of the class of twelve, received a grade of "good" his first semester and was described as "talented". On his report card for the 1843-1844 school year he was the only student to be described as "very talented", and the report for his fourth year said that he "paints Norwegian scenery in a truthful and distinctive manner".
While Gude was a student, two different trends in landscaping were developing at the Academy: a romantic trend
and a classical trend
. The romanticists depicted wild, untamed wildernesses with dark forests, soaring peaks, and rushing water to capture the terrifying and overpowering aspects of nature. They used rich, saturated colors with strong contrast of light and shadow. The classicists were more interested in recreating landscapes from the heroic or mythical past and often set them in the midst of religious or historical events. The classicists focused on lines and clarity in their compositions. It was through Achenbach — Gude's first teacher upon arriving in Düsseldorf — that he was exposed to the romanticist tradition, while it was through his classes with and later time teaching for Schirmer that he was exposed to the classicist traditions.
In 1827 Schirmer and Carl Friedrich Lessing founded a Society for Landscape Composition that would meet a few times each year at Schirmer's home where Schirmer would offer advice on the composition of landscape paintings. Fifteen years later Gude began attending the meetings of the society with other students from his class, but as he progressed to greater levels of realism Gude began to make it clear that he did not agree with the ideas of composition Schirmer put forward during the meetings, saying specifically:
In Düsseldorf Gude met Carl Friedrich Lessing who, while initially aloof, became Gude's friend and colleague. Their relationship was such a close one that Gude's eldest daughter eventually married one of Lessing's sons. The two artists differed in style thought, with Lessing painting dramatic, historical works while Gude never once introduced historical events into his own paintings.
Gude served as a student teacher at the Academy until 1844, before leaving to live in Christiania. On July 25, 1850, Gude married Betsy Charlotte Juliane Anker (1830–1912), the daughter of General Erik Anker, in Christian.
and Prussian
interests Gude was seen as a neutral candidate because of his Norwegian roots. Gude was recommended for the position by the current Director of the Academy Wilhelm von Schadow
, but only after Andreas Achenbach, Oswald Achenbach
, and Lessing had refused the post due to lack of suitable pay. In regards to his position and compensation, Gude wrote:
Throughout his tenure, Gude had private pupils in addition to his normal classes. As a professor Gude taught six hours of class, held two hours of office hours, took turns with other professors supervising the nude drawing
class and attended staff meetings. In 1857 Gude handed in his resignation, officially citing family considerations and failing health as his reasons for resigning, although in his memoirs he blamed opposition and backbiting from two of his pupils. The landscape painting professorship was the bottom of the pay scale at the Academy, and Gude was one of the few professors to be refused a raise when others received them in 1855. Others have suggested that Gude wished to leave the Academy for fear for becoming stuck in a rut artistically. Gude received better treatment from the Academy after he turned in his resignation, and it would take him a full five years to finally leave Düsseldorf. Although professors at the Academy complained that their teaching prevented them from undertaking more lucrative endeavors, Gude was able to sell enough works to afford a modest house in Düsseldorf which stood in what is now Hofgarten park.
In a letter to Jørgen Moe
Gude writes that he see possibility for his own development in Düsseldorf, and that even if it would cause him to be known as a German artist instead of a Norwegian, he would not be ashamed of the fact. In defense of Norwegian artists at the Academy, Gude writes that they were not simply imitating German artists:
Gude was convinced that for Norwegian artists at the Academy it was impossible to escape their heritage and that Norway influenced their art whether they wanted it to or not. On this subject he wrote:
Von Schadow however argued the Gude's art was in fact German in an attempt to defend his nomination of Gude to succeed Schirmer. He wrote of Gude that "His education is totally German, his style unwontedly elevated."
art market in the 1850s after his works were accepted into the galleries of Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere
and the Marquess of Lansdowne
, and so when an English art dealer and former student of Gude — Mr. Stiff — suggested Gude might find success in England, he was quick to respond. In the autumn of 1862 Gude set off for the Lledr Valley
near Conwy
. Wales
, a place renowned for its picturesque scenery, was already home to a colony of British plein-air
artists. While small groups of artists living in the countryside in order to inspire each other, be closer to their subject and escape the city were common, Gude was one of the first Norwegian artists to live in such a manner. Gude rented a house overlooking River Lledr
where he painted one of the ancient Roman bridges which was popular with artists of the time.
Gude reports that the British and Welsh landscape painters were disdainful of artists from the continent
, and that they used a very different style of painting from the continental artists. Whereas Gude and fellow continental artists would go out in nature and make sketches to act as studies for studio works, the British and Welsh painters set up their easels in the field and worked on their paintings with their subjects in front of them. Gude attempted to improve his reputation among the local painters with exhibitions
at the Royal Academy's
spring shows in London in 1863 and 1864, but both were flops that Gude described as "useful but bitter medicine". Despite these setbacks — furthered by the strain the trip had put on Gude's finances due to lack of paintings being sold — Gude felt the trip was of great benefit to himself as an artist, writing to his brother-in-law Theodor Kjerulf
:
While in Wales Gude was visited by Adolph Tidemand
together with Frederik Collett
, and the three traveled to Caernarvon and Holyhead
from which Gude observed his first real Atlantic storm.
where he would once again succeed Schirmer, and so he left Wales. Gude was hesitant to take the position as he felt that it was working for the enemy but was unable to support himself in Norway due to the lack of an art school. He wrote about his thoughts on the position to Kjerulf, stating:
It is suspected that Gude was offered the professorship due to a recommendation from Lessing. When Gude accepted the position at Karlsruhe the flow of Norwegian painters to the Düsseldorf Academy redirected to Karlsruhe, which would produce many of the Norwegian painters of the 1860s and 1870s, among them Frederik Collett
, Johan Martin Nielssen, Kitty L. Kielland, Nicolai Ulfsten, Eilif Peterssen
, Marcus Grønvold
, Otto Sinding
, Christian Krohg
and Frits Thaulow
.
In Karlsruhe Gude continued to faithfully reproduce the landscapes he saw, a style that he passed on to his students by taking them to Chiemsee
to paint the lake en plein air. While on these trips Gude and his pupils often encountered Eduard Schleich der Ältere with his own students from Munich
who were, as Gude described, only out to capture the mood of the scene and were skeptical of the advantages of painting in the sunshine. Gude also took special interest in how light reflected in water while in Karlsruhe, as well as expanding his study of the human figure. Although Gude rarely portrayed humans for their own sake, he began populating his paintings with convincing, if sometimes anatomically incorrect, individuals.
Gude's painted Fra Chiemsee while at Karlsruhe. The painting which was shown in Vienna
was so enthusiastically received that it was purchased by the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum
for display, won Gude a number of medals, and earned him membership in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
.
The school in Karlsruhe was founded by the Grand Duke of Baden whom Gude had good relations with. Because of this fact Gude received better pay than at the Düsseldorf Academy, had spacious and rent-free accommodations and was given generous periods of leave which allowed him to travel in the summer to perform studies for future paintings. Gude served as the director of Karlsruhe from 1866–1868 and again from 1869–1870, where he introduced several of his own educational principles designed to develop pupil's individual talent. But Gude's reign as director at Karlsruhe was not without resistance to his methods, and it is this opposition that he cites as his reason for visiting the Berlin Academy of Art that as early as 1874 in search of better conditions. Because of Gude's visits to Berlin, his relation with the Grand Duke became strained as the Grand Duke felt that the concessions he had made to Gude were so great that Gude should be grateful and not look for a professorships elsewhere. Gude remained at Karlsruhe for six more years after his first visits to the Berlin Academy of Art, but in 1880 he decided to retire from the Karlsruhe school to take up a position in Berlin.
In 1895 the Christiania Art Society held a comprehensive retrospective of Gude's works including his paintings, oil studies, watercolors, sketches and etchings. When asked what should be shown at the exhibition Gude replied that "[...]perhaps room could be found for studies and drawings; I rather think that these will meet with interest. They are also (unfortunately) of greater artistic value." By the time of the exhibition Gude had abandoned his previous style of painting large-scale compositions based on studies, and was working in mediums other than oil. In Berlin Gude began working more heavily in gouache
and watercolor in an effort to preserve the 'freshness' of his art. Although Gude did not heavily exhibit his watercolors they still gained admiration from follow painters, including Harriet Backer
who said:
Gude would spend a few weeks each summer near the Baltic
coast where he drew material for numerous paintings of Ahlbeck
and Rügen
. Although Gude filled these paintings with more figures than his earlier works, his focus was still on accurately capturing the scene and especially the landscape.
As the century drew to a close the established art academies faced 'secession' movements from groups of artists looking to branch of into different style. Gude rallied around his friend Anton von Werner in defending the academies, going so far as to mock
"the so-called Symbolism
" movement. As Gude approached the end of his life he felt more and more unable to keep up with the changes in the art world. After a disappointing exhibition in Kristiania
in 1902 Gude wrote to Johan Martin Nielssen:
In 1880 Gude had between five and eight students, but this number had shrunk to two or three by 1890. In part this reduction of pupils was due to a lack of interest in the Berlin academy, as explained to Gude by Prince Eugén, Duke of Närke
who wrote that he, as well as numerous other young artists, had more of a taste for French art than German.
Gude retired from the Berlin Academy in 1901. He died two years later in Berlin in 1903.
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...
romanticist
Norwegian romantic nationalism
Norwegian romantic nationalism was a movement in Norway between 1840 and 1867 in art, literature, and popular culture that emphasized the aesthetics of Norwegian nature and the uniqueness of the Norwegian national identity...
painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl
Johan Christian Dahl
Johan Christian Claussen Dahl , often known as was a Norwegian landscape painter, who was connected to the Norwegian romantic nationalism. He is often considered have been "the father of Norwegian landscape painting"....
to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Romanticism.
Gude's artistic career was not one marked with drastic change and revolution, but was instead a steady progression that slowly reacted to general trends in the artistic world. Gude's early works are of idyllic, sun-drenched Norwegian landscapes which present a romantic, yet still realistic view of his country. Around 1860 Gude began painting seascape
Seascape
A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. By a backwards development, the word has also come to mean the view of the sea itself, and be applied in planning contexts to geographical locations possessing a good view of...
s and other coastal subjects. Gude had difficulty with figure drawing initially and so collaborated with Adolph Tidemand
Adolph Tidemand
Adolph Tidemand was a noted Norwegian romantic nationalism painter. Among his best known paintings are Haugianerne and Brudeferd i Hardanger with Hans Gude.-Biography:Adolph Tidemand was born in Mandal, Norway as the son of customs inspector and Storting representative...
in some of his painting, drawing the landscape himself and allowing Tidemand to paint the figures. Later Gude would work specifically on his figures while at Karlsruhe, and so began populating his paintings with them. Gude initially painted primarily with oils
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
in a studio, basing his works on studies he'd done earlier in the field. However, as Gude matured as a painter he began to paint en plein air
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
and espoused the merits of doing so to his students. Gude would go on to work with watercolors later in life as well as gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
in an effort to keep his art constantly fresh and evolving, and although these were never as well received by the public as his oil paintings, his fellow artists greatly admired them.
Gude spent forty-five years as an art professor and so he played an important roll in the development of Norwegian art by acting as a mentor to three generations of Norwegian artists. Young Norwegian artists flocked to wherever Gude was teaching, first at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf School
The Düsseldorf school of painting refers to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in the 1830s and 1840s, when the Academy was directed by the painter Wilhelm von Schadow...
and later at the School of Art 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...
. Gude also served as a professor at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1880 to 1901, although he attracted few Norwegians to the Berlin Academy because by this time Berlin had been surpassed in prestige in the eyes of young Norwegian artists by Paris.
Over the course of his lifetime Gude won numerous medals, was inducted as an honorary member in to many art academies, and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav.
Early life
Gude was born in ChristianiaOslo
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...
in 1825 the son of Ove Gude, a judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
, and Marie Elisabeth Brandt.
Gude began his artistic career with private lessons from Johannes Flintoe
Johannes Flintoe
Johannes Flintoe was a Danish painter who spend most of his career in Norway, both painting and teaching. He is known for landscapes and scenes from Scandinavian history.-Biography:Flintoe was born in Copenhagen in 1787...
, and by 1838 he was attending Flintoe's evening classes at the Royal School of Drawing in Christiania. In the autumn of 1841 Johan Sebastian Welhaven
Johan Sebastian Welhaven
Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was a Norwegian author, poet, critic and art theorist.-Background:...
suggested that the young Gude should be sent to Düsseldorf to further his education in the arts.
Academy of Art in Düsseldorf
At the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf Gude encountered Johann Wilhelm SchirmerJohann Wilhelm Schirmer
Johann Wilhelm Schirmer was a German landscape artist from Jülich, within the Prussian Duchy of Jülich.-Biography:...
— a professor in landscape painting
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
— who advised him to give up his ambitions of being a painter and to return to his regular studies before it was too late. Gude was rejected by the academy, but attracted the attention of Andreas Achenbach
Andreas Achenbach
Andreas Achenbach was a German landscape painter.Born at Kassel, he began his art education in 1827 in Düsseldorf under Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow at the Düsseldorf Academy of Painting. He studied at St Petersburg and travelled in Italy, Holland and Scandinavia...
who provided him with private lessons.
As a student
Gude was finally accepted into the Academy in the autumn of 1842 and joined Schirmer's landscape painting class where he made quick progress. The landscape painting class at the Academy was new at the time, having been founded in 1839 as a counterpart to the more long standing figure paintingFigure painting
Figure painting is a form of the visual arts in which the artist uses a live model as the subject of a two-dimensional piece of artwork using paint as the medium. The live model can be either nude or partly or fully clothed and the painting is a representation of the full body of the model...
class. At the time figure painting was considered a more prestigious genre than landscape painting as it was thought only through painting the human body could true beauty be expressed.
Gude, along with most of the class of twelve, received a grade of "good" his first semester and was described as "talented". On his report card for the 1843-1844 school year he was the only student to be described as "very talented", and the report for his fourth year said that he "paints Norwegian scenery in a truthful and distinctive manner".
While Gude was a student, two different trends in landscaping were developing at the Academy: a romantic trend
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...
and a classical trend
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
. The romanticists depicted wild, untamed wildernesses with dark forests, soaring peaks, and rushing water to capture the terrifying and overpowering aspects of nature. They used rich, saturated colors with strong contrast of light and shadow. The classicists were more interested in recreating landscapes from the heroic or mythical past and often set them in the midst of religious or historical events. The classicists focused on lines and clarity in their compositions. It was through Achenbach — Gude's first teacher upon arriving in Düsseldorf — that he was exposed to the romanticist tradition, while it was through his classes with and later time teaching for Schirmer that he was exposed to the classicist traditions.
In 1827 Schirmer and Carl Friedrich Lessing founded a Society for Landscape Composition that would meet a few times each year at Schirmer's home where Schirmer would offer advice on the composition of landscape paintings. Fifteen years later Gude began attending the meetings of the society with other students from his class, but as he progressed to greater levels of realism Gude began to make it clear that he did not agree with the ideas of composition Schirmer put forward during the meetings, saying specifically:
In Düsseldorf Gude met Carl Friedrich Lessing who, while initially aloof, became Gude's friend and colleague. Their relationship was such a close one that Gude's eldest daughter eventually married one of Lessing's sons. The two artists differed in style thought, with Lessing painting dramatic, historical works while Gude never once introduced historical events into his own paintings.
Gude served as a student teacher at the Academy until 1844, before leaving to live in Christiania. On July 25, 1850, Gude married Betsy Charlotte Juliane Anker (1830–1912), the daughter of General Erik Anker, in Christian.
Professorship
In 1854 Gude was appointed the professor of landscape painting at the Academy replacing his former teacher Schirmer. Gude was twenty-nine when appointed, making him the youngest professor at the Academy. His appointment was partially political, in a conflict between RhinelandRhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
and Prussian
Prussia (region)
Prussia is a historical region in Central Europe extending from the south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the Masurian Lake District. It is now divided between Poland, Russia, and Lithuania...
interests Gude was seen as a neutral candidate because of his Norwegian roots. Gude was recommended for the position by the current Director of the Academy Wilhelm von Schadow
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow was a German Romantic painter.-Biography:He was born in Berlin and was the second son of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow....
, but only after Andreas Achenbach, Oswald Achenbach
Oswald Achenbach
Oswald Achenbach was a German landscape painter.Born in Düsseldorf, he received his art education from his brother, Andreas Achenbach. His landscapes generally dwell on the rich and glowing effects of color which drew him to the Bay of Naples and the neighborhood of Rome. He also painted in the...
, and Lessing had refused the post due to lack of suitable pay. In regards to his position and compensation, Gude wrote:
Throughout his tenure, Gude had private pupils in addition to his normal classes. As a professor Gude taught six hours of class, held two hours of office hours, took turns with other professors supervising the nude drawing
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
class and attended staff meetings. In 1857 Gude handed in his resignation, officially citing family considerations and failing health as his reasons for resigning, although in his memoirs he blamed opposition and backbiting from two of his pupils. The landscape painting professorship was the bottom of the pay scale at the Academy, and Gude was one of the few professors to be refused a raise when others received them in 1855. Others have suggested that Gude wished to leave the Academy for fear for becoming stuck in a rut artistically. Gude received better treatment from the Academy after he turned in his resignation, and it would take him a full five years to finally leave Düsseldorf. Although professors at the Academy complained that their teaching prevented them from undertaking more lucrative endeavors, Gude was able to sell enough works to afford a modest house in Düsseldorf which stood in what is now Hofgarten park.
Norwegian or German art
By the mid-19th century the Academy in Düsseldorf had become a center for training Norwegian artists, but within Norway there arose a debate as to whether the art was truly Norwegian as it did not originate in Norway, and was in fact produced by artists who had been trained in Germany. The debate was sparked by proposals to build an art school in Norway, and it was therefore essential for supporters of a Norwegian academy to argue that Norwegian values could not be instilled in the artists if they had to go abroad.In a letter to Jørgen Moe
Jørgen Moe
right|thumb|Norske Folkeeventyr Asbjørnsen and Moe Jørgen Engebretsen Moe was a Norwegian bishop and author...
Gude writes that he see possibility for his own development in Düsseldorf, and that even if it would cause him to be known as a German artist instead of a Norwegian, he would not be ashamed of the fact. In defense of Norwegian artists at the Academy, Gude writes that they were not simply imitating German artists:
Gude was convinced that for Norwegian artists at the Academy it was impossible to escape their heritage and that Norway influenced their art whether they wanted it to or not. On this subject he wrote:
Von Schadow however argued the Gude's art was in fact German in an attempt to defend his nomination of Gude to succeed Schirmer. He wrote of Gude that "His education is totally German, his style unwontedly elevated."
Wales
Many of Gude's peers moved on from the Academy in Düsseldorf to other art institutes, but Gude decided to seek more direct contact with nature. Gude had gained a foothold in the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
art market in the 1850s after his works were accepted into the galleries of Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere KG, PC , known as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, was a British politician, writer, traveller and patron of the arts...
and the Marquess of Lansdowne
Marquess of Lansdowne
Marquess of Lansdowne, in the County of Somerset, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. This branch of the family descends from the Hon...
, and so when an English art dealer and former student of Gude — Mr. Stiff — suggested Gude might find success in England, he was quick to respond. In the autumn of 1862 Gude set off for the Lledr Valley
Lledr Valley
The Lledr Valley is a valley in Snowdonia in north Wales. It runs from the top of the Crimea Pass, north of Blaenau Ffestiniog down to Betws-y-coed....
near Conwy
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...
. Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, a place renowned for its picturesque scenery, was already home to a colony of British plein-air
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
artists. While small groups of artists living in the countryside in order to inspire each other, be closer to their subject and escape the city were common, Gude was one of the first Norwegian artists to live in such a manner. Gude rented a house overlooking River Lledr
River Lledr
The River Lledr is a river in North Wales and the second major tributary of the River Conwy.The Lledr has its source on the eastern slopes of Ysgafell Wen, which lies between Moel Siabod and Cnicht...
where he painted one of the ancient Roman bridges which was popular with artists of the time.
Gude reports that the British and Welsh landscape painters were disdainful of artists from the continent
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
, and that they used a very different style of painting from the continental artists. Whereas Gude and fellow continental artists would go out in nature and make sketches to act as studies for studio works, the British and Welsh painters set up their easels in the field and worked on their paintings with their subjects in front of them. Gude attempted to improve his reputation among the local painters with exhibitions
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
at the Royal Academy's
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
spring shows in London in 1863 and 1864, but both were flops that Gude described as "useful but bitter medicine". Despite these setbacks — furthered by the strain the trip had put on Gude's finances due to lack of paintings being sold — Gude felt the trip was of great benefit to himself as an artist, writing to his brother-in-law Theodor Kjerulf
Theodor Kjerulf
Theodor Kjerulf was a Norwegian geologist and poet.He was born in Christiania, and was the brother of Halfdan Kjerulf. He was educated in the Royal Frederick University and subsequently studied at Heidelberg, working in Robert Bunsen's laboratory. In 1858, he was hired as a lecturer at the Royal...
:
While in Wales Gude was visited by Adolph Tidemand
Adolph Tidemand
Adolph Tidemand was a noted Norwegian romantic nationalism painter. Among his best known paintings are Haugianerne and Brudeferd i Hardanger with Hans Gude.-Biography:Adolph Tidemand was born in Mandal, Norway as the son of customs inspector and Storting representative...
together with Frederik Collett
Frederik Collett
Frederik Jonas Lucian Bothfield Collett was a Norwegian painter, perhaps most associated with his winter pictures from the region around Lillehammer, Norway.-Background:...
, and the three traveled to Caernarvon and Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....
from which Gude observed his first real Atlantic storm.
Baden School of Art
In December 1863 Gude was offered and accepted a professorship at the Baden School of Art in KarlsruheKarlsruhe
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...
where he would once again succeed Schirmer, and so he left Wales. Gude was hesitant to take the position as he felt that it was working for the enemy but was unable to support himself in Norway due to the lack of an art school. He wrote about his thoughts on the position to Kjerulf, stating:
It is suspected that Gude was offered the professorship due to a recommendation from Lessing. When Gude accepted the position at Karlsruhe the flow of Norwegian painters to the Düsseldorf Academy redirected to Karlsruhe, which would produce many of the Norwegian painters of the 1860s and 1870s, among them Frederik Collett
Frederik Collett
Frederik Jonas Lucian Bothfield Collett was a Norwegian painter, perhaps most associated with his winter pictures from the region around Lillehammer, Norway.-Background:...
, Johan Martin Nielssen, Kitty L. Kielland, Nicolai Ulfsten, Eilif Peterssen
Eilif Peterssen
Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was a Norwegian painter.-Background:Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was born in Christiania, now Oslo, Norway. He grew up in the neighborhood of Hegdehaugen in the district of Frogner.He attended the Johan Fredrik Eckersberg School of Painting in Oslo in 1869...
, Marcus Grønvold
Marcus Grønvold
Marcus Frederik Steen Grønvold was a Norwegian painter.Grønvold was born in Bergen the son of vicar Christian August Grønvold , and the brother of painter Bernt Grønvold and educator Didrik Grønvold and third cousin of Hans Aimar Mow Grønvold. He studied at the Art Academy in Copenhagen between...
, Otto Sinding
Otto Sinding
Otto Ludvig Sinding was a Norwegian painter, illustrator, poet and dramatist. Sinding drew on motives from Norwegian nature, folk life and history.-Personal life:...
, Christian Krohg
Christian Krohg
Christian Krohg , was a Norwegian naturalist painter, illustrator, author and journalist.-Life and career:...
and Frits Thaulow
Frits Thaulow
Frits Thaulow was a Norwegian impressionist painter, best known for his naturalistic depictions of landscape.-Biography:...
.
In Karlsruhe Gude continued to faithfully reproduce the landscapes he saw, a style that he passed on to his students by taking them to Chiemsee
Chiemsee
Chiemsee is a freshwater lake in Bavaria, Germany, between Rosenheim, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. It is often called the Bavarian Sea. The rivers Tiroler Achen and Prien flow into the lake; the river Alz, out of it...
to paint the lake en plein air. While on these trips Gude and his pupils often encountered Eduard Schleich der Ältere with his own students from Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
who were, as Gude described, only out to capture the mood of the scene and were skeptical of the advantages of painting in the sunshine. Gude also took special interest in how light reflected in water while in Karlsruhe, as well as expanding his study of the human figure. Although Gude rarely portrayed humans for their own sake, he began populating his paintings with convincing, if sometimes anatomically incorrect, individuals.
Gude's painted Fra Chiemsee while at Karlsruhe. The painting which was shown in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
was so enthusiastically received that it was purchased by the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
for display, won Gude a number of medals, and earned him membership in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is an institution of higher education in Vienna, Austria.- History :The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy by the court-painter Peter Strudl, who became the Praefectus Academiae Nostrae. In 1701 he was ennobled as Baron of the Empire...
.
The school in Karlsruhe was founded by the Grand Duke of Baden whom Gude had good relations with. Because of this fact Gude received better pay than at the Düsseldorf Academy, had spacious and rent-free accommodations and was given generous periods of leave which allowed him to travel in the summer to perform studies for future paintings. Gude served as the director of Karlsruhe from 1866–1868 and again from 1869–1870, where he introduced several of his own educational principles designed to develop pupil's individual talent. But Gude's reign as director at Karlsruhe was not without resistance to his methods, and it is this opposition that he cites as his reason for visiting the Berlin Academy of Art that as early as 1874 in search of better conditions. Because of Gude's visits to Berlin, his relation with the Grand Duke became strained as the Grand Duke felt that the concessions he had made to Gude were so great that Gude should be grateful and not look for a professorships elsewhere. Gude remained at Karlsruhe for six more years after his first visits to the Berlin Academy of Art, but in 1880 he decided to retire from the Karlsruhe school to take up a position in Berlin.
Berlin Academy of Art
In 1880 Gude accepted a position to lead the master studio in landscape painting at the Academy of Art in Berlin, a position which gave him a spot on the Academy's Senate. The Senate was responsible for upholding "all the artistic interests of the state" and membership was a mark of the highest official recognition of Gude's work.In 1895 the Christiania Art Society held a comprehensive retrospective of Gude's works including his paintings, oil studies, watercolors, sketches and etchings. When asked what should be shown at the exhibition Gude replied that "[...]perhaps room could be found for studies and drawings; I rather think that these will meet with interest. They are also (unfortunately) of greater artistic value." By the time of the exhibition Gude had abandoned his previous style of painting large-scale compositions based on studies, and was working in mediums other than oil. In Berlin Gude began working more heavily in gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
and watercolor in an effort to preserve the 'freshness' of his art. Although Gude did not heavily exhibit his watercolors they still gained admiration from follow painters, including Harriet Backer
Harriet Backer
Harriet Backer was a Norwegian painter who achieved recognition in her own time and was a pioneer among female artists both in the Nordic countries and in Europe generally...
who said:
Gude would spend a few weeks each summer near the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
coast where he drew material for numerous paintings of Ahlbeck
Ahlbeck
Ahlbeck is part of Heringsdorf, a seaside resort in Germany on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea. It is situated right next to the border of Poland and the city of Świnoujście ....
and Rügen
Rügen
Rügen is Germany's largest island. Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of the Vorpommern-Rügen district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.- Geography :Rügen is located off the north-eastern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea...
. Although Gude filled these paintings with more figures than his earlier works, his focus was still on accurately capturing the scene and especially the landscape.
As the century drew to a close the established art academies faced 'secession' movements from groups of artists looking to branch of into different style. Gude rallied around his friend Anton von Werner in defending the academies, going so far as to mock
Mock
Mock may refer to:* In geography: Mock, California, in Inyo County* In programming: Virtual mock or Mock object, simulated objects that mimics the behavior of real objects in controlled ways* In mathematics: Mock modular form, mathematical function...
"the so-called Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
" movement. As Gude approached the end of his life he felt more and more unable to keep up with the changes in the art world. After a disappointing exhibition in Kristiania
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...
in 1902 Gude wrote to Johan Martin Nielssen:
In 1880 Gude had between five and eight students, but this number had shrunk to two or three by 1890. In part this reduction of pupils was due to a lack of interest in the Berlin academy, as explained to Gude by Prince Eugén, Duke of Närke
Prince Eugén, Duke of Närke
Prince Eugen Napoleon Nicolaus of Sweden and Norway, Duke of Närke was the youngest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway....
who wrote that he, as well as numerous other young artists, had more of a taste for French art than German.
Gude retired from the Berlin Academy in 1901. He died two years later in Berlin in 1903.
Awards and honors
- 1852 — Gold medal at Berlin Exhibition
- 1855 — Medal, 2nd class, Paris Exhibition
- 1860 — Gold medal at Berlin Exhibition
- 1861 — Medal, 2nd class, Paris Exhibition
- 1867 — Medal, 2nd class, Paris Exhibition
- 1873 — Gold medal at Vienna Exhibition for Nødhavn Ved NorskekystenNødhavn Ved NorskekystenNødhavn Ved Norskekysten is a painting by Norwegian romanticist painter Hans Gude completed in 1873.-Exhibition history:...
- 1876 — Medal for A Fresh Breeze, Norwegian Coast and Calm, Chrstianiaford in Philadelphia at United States Centennial Commission International Exhibition
- 1880 — Member of Berlin Academy of Art's Senate
- 1894 — Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav
Academy memberships
Gude earned membership in the following art academies:- Amsterdam
- Berlin
- Copenhagen
- Rotterdam
- Stockholm
- Vienna