Martinus Rørbye
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Martinus Christian Wesseltoft Rørbye, (May 19, 1803-March 29, 1848), Danish genre painter, was born in Drammen, Norway to Danish parents Ferdinand Henrik Rørbye and wife Frederikke Eleonore Catherine de Stockfleth. He was one of the central artists in the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting.
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[edit] Early life and training
Martinus’ father was a storehouse manager and later Superintendent of War, and had moved the family to Norway shortly before the child’s birth. The family returned to Denmark when Martinus was 12 years old, shortly after the cession of Norway from Denmark in 1814.
Martinus was not inclined to schooling, but in 1820 started his studies at Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) at 17 year of age. He studied under Christian August Lorentzen and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, a strong influence on a generation of artists during the Danish Golden Age of painting. Rørbye was a favorite student of Eckersberg, and they formed a close association. He took to Eckersberg’s careful attention to nature and his strivings to capture details realistically. He was also greatly influenced by Lorentzen’s use of color.
He won the Academy’s small silver medallion in 1824, and the large silver medallion in 1828. He competed for the gold medallion and won a cash prize. He won the small gold medallion in 1829 for his painting "Kristus helbreder de blinde" ("Christ heals the blind"), which remains in the ownership of the Art Academy. He never won the large gold medallion in spite of repeated attempts.
[edit] Early career
He began exhibiting his works in 1824. His works were modestly priced, and he found sufficient buyers for his pieces. Most of his works in the 1820s consisted of views from Copenhagen and the island of Sjælland, although he also painted a number of portraits including one of Lorentzen, his painting instructor.
He exhibited at Charlottenborg most years between 1824 and 1848.
He traveled to Norway in 1830 and 1832 where he painted landscapes, being influenced by Johan Christian Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich.
He traveled also around Jutland, including on May 31, 1830 when he traveled with Hans Christian Andersen to Århus on the steamship Dania, and then on to Randers where they stayed at the Tjele estate. He traveled three times to Skagen between 1833-1848, where he painted the local fishermen and the North Sea environs. He was one of the first artists to travel to Skagen, which in the later years of the 1800s would attract many Danish and Scandinavian artists. He also traveled to Sweden in 1844.
[edit] Adventurous travels and later career
He received a travel stipend from the Academy in 1834 on account of his talents as a portraitist. He traveled by way of Paris to Rome where he met architect Michael Gotlieb Bindesbøll. In Italy he traveled to Sorrento, the Sabine Mountains, and Sicily. The following year Bindesbøll and Rørbye traveled together to Athens, Greece and Constantinople, Turkey, a rare adventure in those days. He sketched prodigiously during his travels. His excellent orientalist studies from these exotic locales brought him the Danish public’s attention.
In 1837 he returned home to Copenhagen. The Academy, recognizing his excellent production during these travels, invited him to apply for membership by submitting a painting. His task was to create a Turkish folk scene. His motif came from a study of "Karavanebroen i Nærheden af Srnyrna" ("Caravan near Snyrna"). It was finished in 1838 and he was unanimously voted into the Academy. His studies from Greece and Turkey continued to serve as the basis for his creative output. In this regard he admired the work of French painter Horace Vernet.
That same year at the Spring Exhibition he received an Exhibition Medallion, the first time it had been given out, for an excellent study in color harmony "En tyrkisk Notar, som afslutter en Ægtepagt" ("A Turkish notary witnesses a marriage contract").
He married Rose Frederikke Schiøtt on August 29, 1839. His health was not good, however, and that same autumn he traveled again to Italy in the hope of renewing his strength. He painted "Torvet i Amalfi" ("The plaza in Amalfi") during this stay, and it was exhibited in 1842. He returned home again in 1841.
He gave private painting lessons to Christen Dalsgaard, and in 1844 became professor at the Academy’s school of modelling. His health deteriorated and he died March 29, 1848 in Copenhagen, leaving his young wife widowed and with several small children. His widow exhibited twelve of his paintings, mostly of Italian subjects, in 1849.
[edit] The fruits of a successful career
He is remembered for his genre paintings, his landscapes and his architectural paintings, as well as for the many sketches he made during his numerous travels. He painted numerous scenes of life in Copenhagen, as well as large compositions showing Italian and Turkish landscapes and scenes of folk life. He painted few portraits.
He was one of the most traveled of the Golden Age painters, and distinguished his artistic production by his painterly interpretations of lands rarely explored at that time for their artistic motifs, as well as for his anecdotal genre paintings depicting the Copenhagen of his day.
His works appear in a number of Danish art museums including the Danish National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst), the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, and the Hirschsprung Collection.
[edit] References
- KID Kunst Index Danmark ("Art Index Denmark")
- Danish Biographical Encyclopedia ("Dansk biografisk Leksikion")
