The Caroline Spring at Næsby on Funen

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Artist: Dankvart Dreyer (Danish, 1816–1852)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 73.5 × 94 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

We are out in nature with the artist. The trees are a little crooked, just the way that trees often are. Nature may be a little rough here, but not frightening. It all simply seems to be a view of what you are likely to see when venturing out into nature, perhaps seeking out a spring to slake your thirst or because the site has some special significance. Wellsprings are often sacred places, and here we could say that we are looking at a particular site that also represents the wellspring of life and nature.

As they won increasing influence on political developments, politically interested citizens kept an open eye on the arts throughout the struggles of the 19th century to define the nation state and national identity. Dreyer's mode of painting was far too coarse and personal to please the supreme arbiter of taste at the time, the fiercely patriotic art historian N.L. Høyen. After Dreyer had repeatedly been the target of Høyer's criticism about painting in an un-Danish fashion he had to give up painting as a profession.