Visionary romantics: Balke, Lucas, Hertervig

Abstract

This exhibition catalogue brings together works by three Romantic artists: the Norwegians Peder Balke (1804-1887) and Lars Hertervig (1830-1902), and the Spaniard Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817-1870). Drawing a parallel between their respective landscapes, they show how these artists captured their inner visions of nature through experimental techniques that to an extent foreshadowed the loose manner of Impressionism and other modern painting movements. We have no indication that they knew one another or had seen each other's works. However, they all sprang from a Romantic tradition and they all focused at least for periods on landscape painting. Generally speaking, their works should not be seen as the naturalist depiction of a particular topography even though they could be inspired by certain geographical areas but rather as a landscape of the mind. They were visionary artists. The aim of this juxtaposition is to highlight the fact that, although they were not in contact with each other, Balke, Hertervig, and Lucas display a common sensibility that inserts them into a Europewide trend, in tune with other 19th-century landscapists such as Caspar David Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner, and Victor Hugo. The authors who have contributed to this catalogue Norwegian and Spanish scholar analyze the visionary Romantics from both a Spanish and a Norwegian perspective as a transnational phenomenon and place the artists featured in the show in their rightful historiographical context, making them easier to understand. They further explore how Balke, Hertervig, and Lucas would often apply experimental or unusual techniques to find an adequate form of expression.