Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 44. Vilhelm Kyhn Copenhagen 1819 – 1903 Copenhagen Landscape in the Haute-Savoie, with an Artist Working in the Open Air, 1850 After receiving a travel grant from the Academy, Kyhn left Denmark in the spring of 1850 and travelled through Holland, Belgium, France and Italy, before returning home via Germany in 1851. Though later in life he would become a vocal critic of young artist’s study trips to Paris and what he perceived as the excessive influence of French art on Danish painters, Kyhn himself stayed in Paris for six weeks. He then spent four months in the Savoy diligently engaged in painting landscape studies, such as this view dated 1850 at lower left. Employing a variety of small brushstrokes, he produced a highly detailed account of the stratigraphic layers of rock and the sparse vegetation of the steep cliffs, and carefully delineated the rubble in the centre of the sheet. Gentle rivulets seep down the rocks, yet a plume of spray rising behind the right side of the gorge hints at a more powerful waterfall just out of sight. It is this view that has captured the attention of the tiny painter in a dark coat, depicted half-way up the cliff centre left.
After receiving a travel grant from the Academy, Kyhn left Denmark in the spring of 1850 and travelled through Holland, Belgium, France and Italy, before returning home via Germany in 1851. Though later in life he would become a vocal critic of young artist’s study trips to Paris and what he perceived as the excessive influence of French art on Danish painters, Kyhn himself stayed in Paris for six weeks. He then spent four months in the Savoy diligently engaged in painting landscape studies, such as this view dated 1850 at lower left. Employing a variety of small brushstrokes, he produced a highly detailed account of the stratigraphic layers of rock and the sparse vegetation of the steep cliffs, and carefully delineated the rubble in the centre of the sheet. Gentle rivulets seep down the rocks, yet a plume of spray rising behind the right side of the gorge hints at a more powerful waterfall just out of sight. It is this view that has captured the attention of the tiny painter in a dark coat, depicted half-way up the cliff centre left.