Abstract
The thesis analyses the portraits of C.W. Eckersberg from formal, philosophical and social perspectives. The
thesis moves from society to subject, from outer circumstances to inner emotions, and from general
European currents in art and philosophy to the subjective experience of emotion at the time of Eckersberg
and today.
Eckersberg’s express intention was to paint ‘the truth’. In the thesis, this ‘truth’ is interpreted as his
endeavour to capture the ideal subject and thereby bridge the experiential divide against the background
of German idealism’s approach to reality, as opposed to the dualism of the Cartesian mind-body split.
Inspired by the simplified aesthetics of archaic and Pre-Renaissance art, Eckersberg realizes this ideal
formally and stylistically through stringent works borne by line rather than colour or painterly qualities.
The thesis inscribes Eckersberg in a pan-European wave of primitivism, linking him to the French painter J.A.-D. Ingres and the German Nazarenes, among others. The thesis also addresses the emotional content of
the portraits through an analysis of their gestural and compositional elements in relationship to the social
conventions and the civilization and cultivation ideals of the period. Finally, these conclusions are related to
contemporary readings of the portraits.