The Courtauld Insitute of Art will be hosting a symposium on Norwegian landscape painter Peder Balke this Thursday. The symposium, which is held in connection with the exhibition currently on show at The National Gallery, will see speakers both from The Northern Norway Art Museum in Tromsø, The National Gallery and The Courtauld Institute.

 

Peder Balke was never very comfortable with the art world of his days. The nineteenth century painter coated the world as he saw it by using a restricted colour palette, with a monochrome expression making his work appear strikingly modern and expressive compared to other painters of his days. Receiving training in both Stockholm and Dresden, he always made his individual manner of painting shine through; something which is easy to spot when you look at his spectacular paintings of the Norwegian mountains, rough seas and isolated spaces.

The evening’s speakers will consider the challenge to art history of dealing with artists like Balke – the construction of the Modern and the pit-falls of the anachronistic application of the criteria of Modernism. They will discuss and seek to address the reception and marginalisation of Balke within the disciplines of art history.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Riopelle, The National Gallery: Balke and Nordic Modernism
Knut Ljøgodt, The Northern Norway Art Museum: The Fate of a Romantic Artist: The Decline and Revival of Peder Balke
Charlotte Ashby, The Courtauld Institute: Balke and the Challenges of Anachronistic Modernism