Morten Muller

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Morten Müller (Photo Ludwik Szacinski de Ravics, around 1895)

Morten Müller (born February 29, 1828 in Holmestrand , Norway ; † February 10, 1911 in Düsseldorf ) was a Norwegian landscape painter from the Düsseldorf School .

Life

Morten Müller was the son of a police sergeant of the same name, who enabled him to train according to his talent. He undertook his first studies with Lars Hansen in Trondheim . In 1847 he went to Düsseldorf to study art, first he was a private student of Adolph Tidemand and Hans Fredrik Gude , and later he was a student at the art academy there under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Rudolf Wiegmann . He was also strongly influenced by August Cappelen and the Achenbach brothers . In 1848 all Norwegians from Düsseldorf returned to Norway because of the revolution . From 1850 to 1851 he stayed temporarily in Stockholm , where he met the future King Charles XV. and met Marcus Larson , with whom he painted pictures together. From 1850 to 1866 he lived again in Düsseldorf, where the Norwegian painters felt closer to the current art scene than in their homeland. He only traveled back to his homeland in summer. Müller married Constanze aus'm Werth (1834–1914) on September 27, 1857 in Jönköping. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson got to know and appreciate him in Düsseldorf in 1863 . In May 1865 his compatriot Berent Madsen died in his house . As a result of the German War , Müller moved to Christiania in 1866 . In 1869 Charles XV invited invited him, Gude and other painters to Ulriksdal . After the death of Johan Fredrik Eckersberg in 1870 he took over the painting school in Christiania, which he had founded in 1859, but had to leave it in 1873 after a dispute with the painter Knud Bergslien, who also worked there, and was replaced there by Peder Cappelen Thurmann . He then moved to Düsseldorf for the third time, where he stayed from then on. From 1894 until his death in 1911 he was a member of the Düsseldorf artists' association Malkasten . The landscape painters Ludvig Munthe and Fredrik Borgen (1852–1907) were his students.

plant

Norsk kystlandskap med folkeliv (Norwegian Coastal Landscape with Folk Life) , 1857
Evening in the Norwegian Mountains , 1869

Müller painted the Norwegian landscape in all its diversity, fjords, lakes, waterfalls, forests and coasts. Within the Düsseldorf School, his painting is assigned in particular to the line of Schirmer, in whose landscape class he stayed in 1850. Most famous are his depictions of old pine forests, which mostly contain small lakes or a view of a fjord. “Of particular interest,” wrote Meyer in 1888, “are his depictions of the coniferous forests at the transition from the valleys to the high mountains.” Another frequent motif from Müller was views from elevated points of view. His pictures were mostly ideal landscapes composed in the sense of the late Schirmer with a move into the grandiose and monumental . Behind it stood the model of Dutch landscape painting of the 17th century. Müller transposed this into the rough Nordic landscape, the characteristics of which he tried to reproduce. He also differed from his teachers in his coarser brushwork. The elaborated landscapes always show people or traces of people. In addition, Müller also painted small-format open-air studies, which he also fully signed and sold. After 1880 the idealized landscape became out of date, and Müller had to accept criticism from the younger generation, for example from Christian Krohg . The pine landscapes were no longer in great demand, and like most Norwegian painters of the time, he began to paint mainly fjord landscapes with tourist steamers. His pictures became lighter and more airy, and he simplified the painting style even more.

Müller sent u. a. the world exhibitions in 1855, 1862, 1867, 1873 and 1898. In 1874 he became a member of the Stockholm Academy, in 1875 court painter. His pictures were bought by the art associations Christiania, Bergen and Trondheim, the King of Sweden and Friedrich Wilhelm IV . In 1897 the Blomqvist company held a solo exhibition on the occasion of his 50th anniversary as a painter.

Selection of works

  • Christianiafjord area , 1855, Oslo National Gallery, purchased in 1857
  • Entrance to the Hardangerfjord , Oslo National Gallery, purchased in 1867
  • Föhrenwald in the gallery in Hamburg
  • two landscapes in the Stockholm Museum and two others in the Bergen Museum
  • Great pine forest
  • Romsdalfjord , with historical staffage by Tidemand, 1876
  • Nocturnal fishing in Norway
  • Norwegian waterfall with fir forest , 1879, Bergen Picture Gallery
  • Norwegian fishing village on Christianiafjord , 1880
  • Norwegian forest area with reindeer
  • Norwegian jungle , 1883
  • Norwegian view , 1886
  • Woman praying in the landscape , National Gallery Oslo, Legacy 1902

literature

Web links

Commons : Morten Müller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel , Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, studies and stay in Düsseldorf. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 1, p. 436.
  2. ^ Rudolf Theilmann: The student lists of the landscape classes from Schirmer to Dücker. In: Wend von Kalnein : The Düsseldorf School of Painting. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 145.
personal data
SURNAME Müller, Morten
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian landscape painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Holmestrand , Norway
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1911
Place of death Düsseldorf , Rhine Province , Kingdom of Prussia , German Empire