"A beautiful and iconic work" —Representative at Sotheby's in New York

“Some of the most extraordinary paintings in Oslo’s National Museum were created by an obscure artist of the mid-19th century called Lars Hertervig, who painted for much of his life in complete isolation on a remote farm near Stavanger. His unpeopled pictures of the Norwegian landscape have an eerie, hyperrealised quality that seems almost to predict the dreamscapes of Salvador Dali” —Andrew Graham-Dixon, one of the leading art critics and leaders of art television in the English speaking world [ Ссылка ] (Dixon 2015).
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“Birth of The Saviour?”, signed L.H. 1850, has two men in a boat which is placed in the gate like part of the lake - just in between the shadow and light. The men are carrying a tree. The boat is 8 mm. The painting has in front of the peasant cottage a woman who is 8 mm long and wearing a Quaker dress from around 1850. The woman is placed close together with the cow, which is 8 mm long from tail to head. Both are right under the big shining tree, in front of the cottage's open stall.
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"Lars Hertervig (1830 - 1902), the romantic landscape painter [and later impressionist and expressionist painter] grew up in a poor and pious Quaker family. The household moved to Stavanger on the country's south west coast around 1838, a town where members of the Quaker Society of Friends were free from persecution. The painter was never a member, but from his youth and throughout his life he was influenced by the sect's religous ideas and teachings through his family» (Koefoed 2008).

«In 1850 his family opposed the idea of rich benefactors in Stavanger paying for their son's education at an art school in Christiania (Oslo), but they respected his wishes and let him go" (Koefoed 2005:87).

20th October 1851 Lars Hertervig went from Oslo to Düsseldorf with his later teacher Erik Bodom (Passport protocols of Norway).

"In 1852 and 1853 he went on to study under one of the most advanced Norwegian landscape painters in Düsseldorf, Hans F. Gude. In time Gude reckoned him as his most promising student" (Koefoed 2005:87).

"When things went poorly for him during his next stay in Düsseldorf from 1853 to 1854, he became psychotic. He spent 1 ½ years at the Gaustad mental asylum on the outskirts of Christiania from 1856 to 1858. In accordance with contemporary ideas about mental illness, it was said that if he recovered he could possibly work as a painter and decorator but never again as an artist" (Koefoed 2005:87).

"From 1858 Hertervig was taken care of by his family and Stavanger’s relief poor. He continued to paint landscapes, but not in the Düsseldorf style. He developed a more personal style revealing special interest in light, clouds and the sky. After 1868 many of his motifs can be understood in a Quaker contest, displaying reverence for the creation" (Koefoed 2005:87).

"Some of his late art from the 1880s to 1890s shows parallels to symbolists and early modern painters (like Paul Gauguin), who also were essentialists in their approaches to art" (Koefoed 2005:89).
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References
Andrew Graham - Dixon (2015): Art in Cold Climate. Christie's art Magazine July 17, 2015.

Koefoed, H. (1984): Lars Hertervig. Lysets maler. Oslo: Gyldendal

Koefoed, H. (2005): Lars Hertervigs art from 1868 - 1902. On the painter Lars Hertervig's Quaker background. In Fragmenter: Page 87 - 89. Oslo: Labyrinth Press

Passport protocols of Norway A-10085 Oslo politidistrikt, Forvaltning og fremmedkontroll, reisekontroll, passprotokoller, passprotokoll nr. 5 (1848-1853), s. 156.

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