Johan Christian Dahl, The Lower Falls of the Labrofoss

Johan Christian Dahl probably visited the waterfalls at Labro (Labrofoss) when on a sketching trip in Norway, his country of birth, in 1826. This picture was painted in his Dresden studio the following year and was sold in 1828 to a Mr Bracebridge, a British businessman and trader from London.

Around 80 kilometres west of Oslo, the Labrofoss are among Norway’s major falls. Dahl shows the lower part of the rapids, placing us on flat rocks directly facing the torrent surging through a narrow gully. He applied the white paint thickly to suggest the power and roughness of the water as it cascades over the rocks. In the background, tall pine trees, interspersed with deciduous trees, are silhouetted against a darkening sky. The low clouds are tinged with violet as dusk descends.

Although a rugged landscape, this is not untamed wilderness. Look closely and you can see a large wooden hut on the left and two woodcutters, one holding an axe, near the centre of the painting. Despite being dwarfed by the trees and massive boulders, the woodcutters’ presence, together with the logs that tumble down the falls and gather at the bottom of the picture, show that this countryside is harvested for its resources. This practice continues today: Labrofoss is now the site of a hydroelectric power station.

Born and raised in Bergen in Norway, Dahl lived most of his life outside of the country, although he regularly returned there later in life, beginning with the trip he made in 1826. In 1811 he had moved to Copenhagen where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and formed a friendship with Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. Seven years later he relocated to Dresden, where in 1825 he was made a professor at the city’s art academy.

While in Dresden, Dahl formed a close friendship with the German landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. Dahl shared Friedrich’s Romantic view of landscape, stating in a letter of 1818 to Prince Christian Frederick (who later became king of both Norway and Denmark) that, ‘most of all I am representing nature in its freedom and wildness’. However, despite his interest in mood and drama, Dahl’s landscapes are not infused with the spiritual significance and still intensity of Friedrich’s. The single tree that stands alone on the left bank in this picture does not, for example, have the symbolic overtones of Friedrich’s Winter Landscape. Instead, Dahl’s romanticism is tempered by detailed naturalism and anecdotal detail, such as the woodcutters and their hut that we see here.