Hidden Drawings from the Danish Golden Age
Drawing and underdrawing in Danish Golden Age views from Italy
K ASPER MONR AD, MIKKEL SCHARFF AND JØRGEN WADUM
111 e n g l i s h v e r s i o n
n the so-called Golden Age period
at the beginning of the 19th century,
Danish artists often travelled abroad,
especially to Rome. The travelling artists
carried out their drawings in situ before
their motifs, and these drawings frequently
constituted the basis of their paintings. In
this article we will discuss to what extent
the artists followed the original drawing in
the final picture. We will give examples of
how they made additions, adjusted details
or even manipulated the motifs. Infra-red
reflectography of the paintings reveals that
the artists often made underdrawing on
the priming before they started painting.
The underdrawings frequently vary in
occasional detail from the original drawing
– and also from the final painting – thereby
giving us a unique insight into the artistic
considerations during the creative process.
I
Introduction
Danish Golden Age painting is clearly
influenced by the fact that C.W. Eckersberg
passed on his very meticulous working
methods to his pupils in his teaching at The
Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. This
working method demanded extraordinarily
careful planning of each single composition,
which left no room for many improvisations
and spontaneous impulses. Before the
finished work was accomplished, there
was first a carefully considered choice of
motif followed by thorough planning and
implementation of all the phases of the
task. The composition had to be determined,
perhaps be corrected and improved and the
details should be studied very closely before
the painter could start transferring the motif
to the priming; in Eckersberg’s case this was
always on canvas, but his pupils often used
specially prepared paper for their oil studies.
Composition drawings, detail studies
and painted sketches were often made in
advance of the completed paintings.
One of the basic essentials in Eckersberg’s
art – and consequently in that of his faithful
pupils of the 1820s and 1830s – was that
motifs should be depicted as they could be
experienced in reality. The direct study of
nature was a vital prerequisite for them to be
able to meet this demand, but nature should
not be imitated slavishly. Eckersberg also
insisted on an ideal view that could raise the
motif from just a random prospect. The motif
should be depicted as it could be observed
in ideal circumstances. It had not the least
to do with pure realism. Eckersberg himself
spoke of ”Truth”.1
This painstaking working method has
enabled posterity to look over the artists’
shoulders and follow their deliberations
on the way to the completed pictures. The
relationship between sketches and finished
works has been looked at critically several
times in Danish art-historical literature.2
However, in previous discussions the writers
have mainly kept to what can be seen with
the naked eye. Infra-red reflectography,
however, now makes it possible to get
behind the paint and see the underdrawings
which the artist executed on the priming
before they even took out their brushes. This
means that an important part of the artistic
work has not previously been involved in
the discussion about the working method of
Golden Age painters.
In this article we will present a recently
started study of how C.W. Eckersberg (17831853) and his pupils created and worked up
their compositions. We have chosen to focus
on a number of paintings from Italy, as they
constitute a homogenous group as far as all
the painters are concerned, so that parallels
can immediately be drawn and differences
pointed out. Employing infra-red reflectography3, we have examined a large number
of paintings in Statens Museum for Kunst.
When we realized that Eckersberg and his
pupils made an underdrawing of their motif
on the priming before the actual painting
of the picture, we decided to investigate
whether the underdrawing was slavishly
followed during the painting process, or
whether the artist added, removed or altered
elements during the work. If this was the
case, we would have a basis for determining
if the artists reproduced the motif exactly
as they had observed it, or in an idealized
form where compositional and aesthetic
considerations also played a part.
The existence of drawn sketches for many
of the paintings gives us an important opportunity to examine how the scenery which
was recorded on the spot in front of the
motif was later transferred – i.e. repeated or
copied – onto the priming as an underdrawing. Ideally we should be able to follow the
creative process through three phases: the
drawing from nature, the transferred picture
to the underdrawing and finally the painting
itself on top.
In some cases, the drawings (the majority
of which are in Statens Museum for Kunst)
were squared up before the transfer of the
motif to the priming. The squaring up was
done with pencil or ink – clearly not necessarily the same material or technique as the
drawing itself. Any time lapse between the in
situ sketching and the choice of the drawing
to be employed as the basis of a painting
could mean a later addition of the grid.
The next step would then be the transfer
of the grid to the priming. This and the
drawing were often almost identical sizes,
but the painting was more frequently rather
larger than the drawing. In this case the
motif could not be transferred by tracing. Our
evaluation of how exactly the artist copied
details from the drawing to the painting will
not just depend on his artistic working up of
the individual details of the motif, but also on
how carefully he actually effected the transfer.
Eckersberg – the father of Danish
painting
It was during his stay in Rome in 1813-16
that Eckersberg committed himself to the
working method that was to form the basis
of his own and his pupils’ art. This happened
during work on the many views he painted
of the antique ruins and medieval churches
of Rome. We have it from his own pen that
in the spring of 1814 he began to complete
these paintings en plein air in front of the
motifs.4 In all likelihood this meant that he
first made his compositional drawing before
the motif and then transferred it to canvas
in the shape of the underdrawing, which was
carried out back home in the studio. The
work of painting was started in the same
place, and only after the underpainting
was completed did he return to the motif
where he could finish the work influenced
by the observations he made on the spot.
Thus he introduced plein air painting to
Danish art.5 In this connection it is worth
noting that Eckersberg’s Roman views are
to be regarded as finished paintings, not
e n g l i s h v e r s i o n 112
as painted sketches – despite the fact that he
himself called them ”Skizer” – sketches.
On his return to Copenhagen, he was
appointed professor at the Academy of Fine
Arts in 1814, and over the next 35 years
he passed on his ideas and experiences to
a couple of generations of painters. He thus
made plein air painting part of his teaching, in
the shape of painting exercises outdoors in the
neighbourhood of Copenhagen. His pupils went
along willingly and took the lessons to heart. In
this context the question arises: to what extent
did Eckersberg influence his pupils as regards
working method?
Porta Angelica and Part of the Vatican
One of the first paintings Eckersberg did in
Rome is the small painting of Porta Angelica
and Part of the Vatican (fig. 1) from 1813.6 The
infra-red picture (fig. 2) of the painting reveals
another motif started under the paint. This
sort of reuse of a canvas with an abandoned
composition was quite normal among young
impoverished artists out travelling. It was
apparently a figure composition closely
related to the mythological motifs known from
Eckersberg’s drawings of the same date, i.e.
autumn, 1813.
Compared with the drawing (fig. 1), there
are some minor alterations on the right side of
the picture, to make the motif fit the size of
the canvas, which is narrower than the drawing.
The houses are pulled in a little bit towards the
middle from the right. Besides this, Eckersberg
also made definite changes in the underdrawing. Although there are perspectival guidelines
everywhere in the buildings, he reduced the
height of the building with the steep roof on
the left of the gate in the underdrawing. The
purpose was clearly to avoid the ridge of the
roof breaking the horizontal line of the Vatican
Palace’s long wall. In this way, Eckersberg
strengthened the horizontal accentuation in the
picture and adapted reality to his principles of
composition.
The vegetation on the building appears much
more fertile in the painted version than in
the drawing (always excepting the unfinished
foreground in the painting) – not to speak of
the loose arabesques which sketch out plants
in the underdrawing. By adding so much
vegetation, the artist stressed the picturesque
aspect of the motif.
113 e n g l i s h v e r s i o n
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
View through Three Arches of the Third
Storey of Colosseum
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Whereas the painting of Porta Angelica
was in all likelihood entirely painted in the
studio, Eckersberg’s View through Three of the
Northwestern Arches of the Third Storey of the
Colosseum. A Thunderstorm is Brewing over
the City (fig. 4) was done after he started to
complete his paintings outdoors in front of the
motifs in 1814.7 The painting has the appearance of a homogenous whole, but in point of
fact the view of Rome was pieced together from
three slightly separate views.8 Eckersberg made
this plan right from when he worked on the
composition drawing (fig. 5). Here Eckersberg
employed ruler and dividers to construct the
convincing foreshortening of the foreground
architecture. The construction lines were laid
out with a thinner, presumably harder pencil.
The drawing we can now see was carefully
repeated over these thin lines with a darker and
softer pencil.
The motif was little altered during the
transfer from drawing to underdrawing for
the painting (fig. 6). When the drawing is laid
on top of the painting using digital aids, it
is revealed that it is almost identical in size
except for just a few millimeters at the top.
However, Eckersberg did not copy the drawing
mechanically when he executed the underdrawing, but carried out a new construction of the
motif on the canvas, again employing ruler
and dividers on the priming. Several small
differences have occurred in this process, as
the middle arch is copied straight from the
drawing without alterations, while the left and
right arches have been raised a little. This
makes the walls appear thinner, thus giving the
building a rather lighter appearance than in the
drawing. Furthermore the right-hand arch has
been moved a few millimeters to the right.
It is in the painted version of the architecture,
in the stones and brickwork, that Eckersberg
diverged from the composition drawing. Each
of the vaulted arches received an extra row of
stones actually forming the arch, added after
completion of the underdrawing. Eckersberg
painted the large square block in the pillar
on the left rather displaced in relation to
both the drawing and the accurately copied
underdrawing. Except for this there are just
small adjustments and alterations to the
buildings and vegetation in the distant vista of
e n g l i s h v e r s i o n 114
the background.
In the two examples of Eckersberg which
are described here, the underdrawing has
been laid over both drawings and paintings
with the aid of the image processing software
VIPS/nip29 to throw light on how proportions as
well as architectural details and construction
lines were transferred during the work. While
there are adjustments of details in the painting
of the Colosseum, the composition in the
painting of Porta Angelica has been adapted to
a rather different picture format. Furthermore,
several minor alterations become visible when
the composition drawing and the underdrawing
are laid over each other.
Eckersberg’s pupils
We often find Eckersberg’s pupils making
the same painstaking transference of the
motif from the composition drawing to the
underdrawing under the painting. But we
can also observe a certain relaxation of both
the stringent rules of perspective and fidelity
to the depicted motif. Whereas Eckersberg
hardly ever made painted oil studies as an
intermediate stage between the composition
drawing and the finished painting,10 it became
general practice among his pupils; they always
painted these studies right in front of the
motif, on a piece of paper which had been
prepared for this purpose and fastened in the
lid of their paint box. However it was still usual
for painters to make an underdrawing on the
priming before they started to paint.
This is especially true of Christen Købke
(1810-48). During his stay in Italy 1838-40,
he travelled with his painting companion
Constantin Hansen to Naples, Pompeii and
Capri, where he painted en plein air.
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Castel dell’Ovo in Naples
In Købke’s oil sketch of Castel dell’Ovo in
Naples (fig. 7) from 1839/40, the detailed
execution of the composition drawing reveals
careful observation of the cliff-like fortress
(fig. 8).11 Meticulous vertical hatching suggests
shadows on the left side of the scenery. There
are several rowing boats and sailing ships on
the water, and the irregular contours of the
mountains above the low horizon can be seen
in the distant background.
The underdrawing of the oil study (fig. 9)
is of a very sketchy nature; the outlines are
115 e n g l i s h v e r s i o n
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
steeper or even pulled a little to the left
compared with the drawing. The left outline
of the main tower was actually commenced
farther to the left, compared with the position
Købke finally gave it, which was more correct
in relation to the composition drawing. The
meticulous hatching in the shadowed areas
in the drawing are only indicated with a few
sporadically applied diagonal lines over the
massive volume of the fortress. The stones in
the water along the pier in the foreground have
been given individual shapes in the drawing,
whereas in the underdrawing they are only just
sketched out.
The most obvious difference is not only the
lack of detail and the almost stenographic
draughtsmanship in the underdrawing. The
artist had only need of a rough indication
of the forms in the oil study, as he would
be able to rely on the composition drawing
while painting. Thus the mountains in the far
distance to the right are painted in accordance
with the drawing, although they are not visible
in the underdrawing.
The most conspicuous alteration is the
bridge on the far left, which is omitted in both
the underdrawing and the painting. The little
bridge was left out even before the painter put
brush to paper. The bridge did not disappear
as a result of cropping the motif before he
transferred it to the less rectangular oil study.
It was a conscious choice to remove the bridge,
thus strengthening the line of perspective
created by the pier.
None of the boats is transferred to the
underdrawing or the painting, and the same
holds true of all human activity on the pier.
The purpose of the oil study was to capture
the light and the atmosphere of the place,
and Købke therefore did not think it worth
the trouble to transfer these details. If he
had decided at a later stage to paint a larger
version of the motif, he would have inserted
them again on the canvas, just as he did in
several other instances: for example when he
painted a large repetition of the closely related
study of The Gulf of Naples with Vesuvius in
the Background.12
Købke very carefully recorded the motif in
his drawing of Castel dell’Ovo in Naples. He
adjusted the motif in the painting, leaving
out characteristic architectural elements, and
he allowed himself to demonstrate a lack of
e n g l i s h v e r s i o n 116
precision in the transfer of the motif to the
underdrawing/painting. Eckersberg would have
drawn up guiding lines with the help of dividers and ruler to recreate on canvas what he
had already constructed on paper. His pupils
became freer in their way of working, less tied,
thereby demonstrating a different practice
towards the middle of the 19th century; this
is immediately apparent when comparing
Købke’s meticulously executed drawing with
his less controlled and sketchy underdrawing.
In the Gardens of the Villa Albani
Unlike Købke, Constantin Hansen (1804-80)
remained in Italy for an appreciable period of
time, from 1835 to 1844.
Among Constantin Hansen’s works from
Italy, In the Gardens of the Villa Albani (fig. 10)
from 1841 offers particularly good opportunities for following his artistic deliberations
during the creative process, as there are an
oil study (fig. 11) and two drawings over and
above the final painting.13 A closer analysis
of the preliminary works suggests the rather
surprising likelihood that the oil study was
executed before the drawings. This does not
correspond to normal practice among the
Danish painters. However it is even more
surprising that the infra-red pictures (fig. 12)
of the oil study reveal that for once the painter
did not make an underdrawing before he
started painting. This is extremely unusual,
also for the artist himself.14 It means that
Constantin Hansen must have loosely sketched
the motif with oil paint and then painted
quite freely while seated in front of the motif
with the paper attached to the lid of his paint
box. Sitting in the area of the south-western
entrance in the corner of the park, he turned
his gaze to the north-east along two hedges
towards a column monument in front of a
small mausoleum-like building with a sculpture
niche, and on towards the Sabine Hills. The
Villa Albani can be seen to the left at an angle
along the façade of the park. The chosen
time of day was about noon, when the painter
had the sun obliquely behind him, and the
shadows were short.
His next step was probably a relatively small
drawing (fig. 13), in which the artist left out
the foreground of the painting and concentrated on the perspectival construction and the
details of the background. The point of view is
117 e n g l i s h v e r s i o n
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
altered here in relation to the oil study, the
column in the middle ground being moved
farther to the right. Furthermore, the column
has been made considerably larger than in
reality, so it gains a more eye-catching role
in the composition, almost as important as
the villa. The light in this drawing comes
from the left, i.e. from the late afternoon
sun, in contrast to the other depictions of
the motif. He may have considered this
lighting in the final picture. If this was so,
he quickly abandoned this idea, presumably
because the villa’s garden façade would then
lie in shadow.
The painter had hardly decided how the
view between the two hedges should be
framed when he carried out this drawing
(fig. 13). But he definitely did so in the other
drawing (fig. 14). The single column with a
bust which can be seen in the foreground of
the oil study has been given a twin on the
opposite side of the picture, so the composition becomes approximately symmetrical
and thus gains a more monumental frame.
The perspectival construction is transferred
unaltered from the first drawing, despite
the apparently changed viewpoint. Some
very fine vertical grid lines in both drawings
show that the painter was very careful in
transferring the individual elements so that
the proportions of the composition could be
retained. The column in the middle of the
picture is again reduced to its natural size
so that it does not steal attention from the
villa. The lighting is changed to morning
light so that the main building is again
bathed in sunshine. Several details are
not so minutely worked here, for example
the architectural adornment of the villa, as
Constantin Hansen doubtless reckoned on
having both drawings to hand when the
painting was to be carried out.
The motif is transferred largely without
alterations from the other drawing to the
underdrawing (fig. 15) on the canvas,
which has almost the same format; nor are
there any adjustments during the painting
except for the sarcophagus on the right
side of the painting which is enlarged by
approximately 5 centimeters in relation to
the drawing (it stood on the left in the oil
study). This means that the painter more
or less decided the composition and the
details of the motif before he started on the
underdrawing and the painting. The details
of the main building correspond exactly to
the depiction in the first drawing, as one
could expect. The painting is not so large.
So he could easily have taken it back with
him to the gardens of the Villa Albani so
that he again had the motif before him
while he was painting.
This would at least explain the finely observed
nuances in both the sunlit areas and the shade.
Conclusion
This investigation of drawings, underdrawings, oil studies and finished paintings
by Eckersberg and his two pupils, using
the Italian views as examples, points to a
number of important aspects which shed
light on the creative process in Danish
Golden Age painting in the first half of
the 19th century. The preliminary drawings
– preferably composition drawings – which
were done in front of the motif were
meticulously constructed and reproduced
many details. Architecture received the
painters’ greatest attention, whereas vegetation, rocks and stones as well as figures in
the landscape received a lower priority.
The drawing done directly from the motif
was squared up in several instances with
a view to its transference to the painting,
which was often no larger than the drawing.
Some elements could be altered during the
process, but by and large the artist retained
the original dispositions quite precisely.
In some cases the architecture was
consciously altered so as to strengthen the
forms and create harmony in the picture. In
this way, we can prove that although the
Italian motifs appear realistic at first sight,
they were nonetheless adjusted or even
manipulated by the artists.
e n g l i s h v e r s i o n 118
This article is an edited and expanded version
of ”The Multiple Views of Italy: Reality or
Manipulation by the Danish Golden Age Artists”
to be published in The Quest for the Original (H.
Verougstraete and J. Couvert, eds.) Symposium
XVI for the Study of the Underdrawing and
Technology in Paintings. Bruges 21st, 22nd and
23rd September 2006 (Brussels 2008).
We would like to thank Anne Christiansen,
Odense City Museums, Henrik Bjerre, Head
Conservator at the Jørn Rubow Center, and Jakob
Skou-Hansen, Head Photographer, both from
Statens Museum for Kunst, for valuable advice
and assistance.
3
4
1
2
Cf. Erik Fischer, ”Eckersbergs harmoniske univers”,
in: Erik Fischer et al., Tegninger af C.W. Eckersberg.
Exhibition catalogue. Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen, 1983, 7-16; & Kasper Monrad in
Catherine Johnston et al., Baltic Light. Early Open-Air
Painting in Denmark and North Germany. Exhibition
catalogue. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa 1999, 4.
Karl Madsen, ”Christen Købke og hans Billeder paa
Galleriet” Kunstmuseets Aarsskrift, I, 1914, 3-51; Carl
V. Petersen, ”Skitse og Billede i vor ældre Malerkunst”,
Kunstmuseets Årsskrift, XX-XXI, 1933-1934,
114-130; Knud Voss, Guldalderens Malerkunst. Dansk
Arkitekturmaleri 1800-1850. Copenhagen 1968, passim;
Kasper Monrad, ”Købke på Frederiksborg i 1835”, in:
Danmarks Christian. Christian IV i eftertiden. Exhibition
catalogue. Aarhus Art Museum, Århus, 1988, 56-67;
Torsten Gunnarsson, Friluftsmåleri före friluftsmåleriet.
Oljestudien i nordiskt landskapsmåleri 1800-1850. (Acta
Universitatis Upsaliensis. Ars Suetica 12). Uppsala
1989, passim; Kasper Monrad, Hverdagsbilleder. Dansk
guldalder - kunstnerne og deres vilkår. Copenhagen
1989, particularly the section ”Den hastige skitse
119 e n g l i s h v e r s i o n
5
6
7
og den monumentale komposition”, 168-176; Kasper
Monrad, Turner and Romantic Nature. Exhibition
catalogue. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
2004, particularly the section ”Observation and
Construction: From Sketch to picture“, 78-104.
The infra-red photography was carried out by Jørgen
Wadum and Mikkel Scharff with an Artist PRO®
camera (Art Innovation, Hengelo, Holland) mounted
with a CCD progressive scan image sensor (1360 x
1036 pixels) and a Schneider Kreuznach Xenoplan 23
mm F/1.4 CCTV lens in near Infrared 2 with a long
wave pass filter 1000 mm. The pictures were taken
with Artist software (edition 1.2) and compiled with
Nips2 (fig. 2, 6, 9,12, 15).
Cf. letter to J.F. Clemens, dated 23rd. July 1814;
Henrik Bramsen et al., ”Dagbog og breve. Rom
1813-16” in Meddelelser fra Thorvaldsens Museum,
1973, 57.
Cf. Kasper Monrad, ”Eckersberg and Open-Air
Painting”, in: Philip Conisbee et al., Christoffer Wilhelm
Eckersberg. Exhibition catalogue. National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D. C. 2003, 13-25.
C.W. Eckersberg, Porta Angelica and Part of the Vatican.
(Rome 1813). Oil on canvas, 31.7 x 41.3 cm (inv.
KMS7383); Drawing in private possession, Cf. Peter
Michael Hornung & Kasper Monrad, C. W. Eckersberg
– dansk malerkunsts fader. Copenhagen 2005, 134f.
C.W. Eckersberg, View through Three of the
Northwestern Arches of the Third Storey of the
Colosseum. (Rome 1815). Oil on canvas, 32.0 x
49.5 cm (inv. KMS3123); Conisbee, 1993, cat. 25.
Pencil on paper, 337 x 529 mm (inv. KKS2001-1)
– measurements of the framed drawing: 318 x 490
mm. Hornung & Monrad, 2005, 164. On the back of
the drawing there is a sketch of the interior of the
Colosseum which can be dated to 1815. This makes
a dating of both the front drawing and the painting
to 1815 likely.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Jf. Kasper Monrad ”A view through Three Arches”, in:
Johnston, 1999, 2.
Martinez, K. and Cupitt, J. ”VIPS Ð a highly tuned
image processing software architecture”. In
Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Image
Processing 2, Geneva 2005, pp. 574-577.
There are only two known painted preparatory
studies by Eckersberg, cf. Gunnarsson, 1989, 99;
Monrad, 2004, 91-97, cat. 53.
Christen Købke, Castel dell´Ovo in Naples (1839/40) Oil
on paper on canvas, 25.0 x 36.0 cm (inv. KMS3467);
Hans Edvard Nørregård-Nielsen & Kasper Monrad
(ed.), Christen Købke 1810-1848. Exhibition catalogue.
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 1996, cat.
139. Pencil on paper bordered in pencil, 223 x 355
mm (inv. KKSgb2908). Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen.
Cf. Nørregård-Nielsen & Monrad, 1996, cat. 141 &
175.
Constantin Hansen, In the Gardens of the Villa Albani
Study, (1841). Oil on paper on canvas. 24.5 x 30
cm. Funen’s Art Museum, Odense City Museums
(inv. FSM 784) and In the Gardens of the Villa Albani,
(1841). Oil on canvas, 34.0 x 50.0 cm. Statens
Museum for Kunst (inv. KMS3843a); Cf. Kasper
Monrad, Turner and Romantic Nature. Exhibition
catalogue. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
2004, cat. 57 & 58. In the Gardens of the Villa Albani.
Middle- and background study (1841) Pencil and white
chalk on paper, 220 x 343 mm. Statens Museum
for Kunst (inv. KKS10540); In the Gardens of the Villa
Albani (1841). Pencil and white chalk on paper, 348 x
448 mm, Statens Museum for Kunst (inv. KKS9985).
Constantin Hansen has executed a meticulous
underdrawing under the paint layer of the oil study
of Vicolo Sterrato in Rome from 1837 (Statens
Museum for Kunst, inv. KMS6640)