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Seascape
Peder Balke Norwegian
Not on view
Majestic mountains and immense, churning clouds are indifferent to the course of a steamer chugging along the coast, trailed by gulls. This work, a tour de force of Balke’s ability to dematerialize form through the use of a limited palette, strikes a balance between painterly effect and a poetic vision that aspires to the Sublime. This composition exists in a number of variants. One of these, Fresh Breeze, Bindalen, is dated 1848 (now in the KODE Art Museums of Bergen). It is thus possible that the present work represents Heilhornet, the impressive mountain at Bindal on the central coast of Norway that Balke passed in 1832; if so, he took liberties with the topography.
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