Birch Tree in a Storm  1849

This is one of Dahl’s most iconic subjects, long seen as emblematic of Norway’s patient endurance of foreign rule. Although based on a nature study Dahl made in Germany in 1823 (now in the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo), it was intended to evoke the landscape of Norway. The image of the single, heroic tree stems from seventeenth-century prototypes by Jacob van Ruisdael, who was in ...