Thomas Fearnley

Thomas Fearnley (27 December 1802 -16 January 1842) was a Norwegian romantic painter, a pupil of Johan Christian Dahl and a leading representative of Norwegian romantic nationalism in painting.

Fearnley was from Halden, son of one rich merchant. He took on the then new ship drawing hall in Kristiania. One of mediocre, Henrik Wergeland, where his friend and first cinema. One time Fearnley went to the Academy in Copenhagen, but studied three-year (1824-27) landscape measurements at Professor Carl Johan Fahlcrantz at the Stockholm Academy. During a study trip in Western Norway in the summer of 1826 he met J.C. Dahl. By Dahl, he learned to study nature, a setting as supported by the study of C.W. Eckersberg in Copenhagen.

In autumn 1828, Fearnley traveled to Dresden, Germany, and was a student of J.C. for half an year. Dahl. Fearnley then settled in Munich in 1830, a city that would become an art center under the enthusiast King Ludvig of Bavaria. Fearnley enjoyed flipping around and getting new impressions. From Munich he traveled to Italy, Paris, London and around England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway.

In 1840, he married Cecilia Catharine Andresen (1817–1888). She was the daughter of his benefactor, banker Nicolai Andresen, who founded what became the Andresen Bank, one of Norway's largest commercial banks of its time. In the autumn of 1841, the couple went to Amsterdam for the birth of their only child, Thomas Nicolay Fearnley (1841-1927), who became a Norwegian shipping magnate. His grandsons were shipping magnate Thomas Fearnley (1880–1961) and land owner N. O. Young Fearnley. His descendants founded the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in 1993.

Thomas Fearnley attended National Cadet Corps (Landkadettkorpset) 1814-1819. He was a student of the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry (Den kongelige Tegneskole) (1819-1821), Art Academy (Kunstakadamie) in Copenhagen (1821-1823) and the Art Academy (Konstakadamien) in Stockholm (1823–27) under Carl Johan Fahlcrantz.

Fearnley left Copenhagen bound for Stockholm in the autumn of 1823 to complete a painting commissioned by Crown Prince Oscar of Norway and Sweden. He received several orders from the Swedish royal family and from other members of the royal court including Swedish Count Gustaf Trolle-Bonde. He conducted study tours in Norway (1824-1826), at which time he met Johan Christian Dahl in Sogn. After another stay in Copenhagen from (1827-1828) and a new Norwegian-trip in the autumn of 1828 he went to Germany and was a student of Dahl in Dresden (1829-1830) as well as befriending the German painter Joseph Petzl and the German-Danish painter Friedrich Bernhard Westphal. He lived in Munich (1830–32).

Fearnley traveled extensively in the 1830s visiting Munich, Paris, London, Hull and the English Lake district. During September 1832, he went from Venice to Rome and visited Sicily the following summer. He mostly painted in small towns south of Naples: Castellammare, Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and in Switzerland: Meiringen, Grindelwald. He went to Paris in the summer of 1835 and visited London the next year. During the summer of 1839 he was on a study tour to the Sognefjord and Hardangerfjord, together with the German painter Andreas Achenbach.

Fearnley was influenced by other Caspar David Friedrich, John Constable and William Turner. As a romantic, he succeeded in the motive of powerful mountains and waterfalls, special in his monumental works. The Labrofossen (1837), Grindelwald Glacier (1838) and Slindebirken (1839) hosted all his work.

Fearnley's paintings alternate between oil sketches and larger, composed landscapes meant for exhibition. His large studio compositions have a cool monumental attitude with a taste for the powerful and wildly romantic in the favorite motifs, wilderness and waterfalls, and with a strong emphasis on the image's architectural structure. The National Gallery in Oslo owns a total of 54 of his smaller pictures and sketches and also a series of drawings. Notable works in this collection include Labrofossen (1837), Grindelwaldgletsjeren (1838) and Slinde Birken (1839). Other notable collections are located in the Bergen Kunstmuseum and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

Fearnley was an unusual goverick painter, who worked lightly and with some speed and freshness that impressed contemporary. He was a sure composer, rich in color and safe brushing. His happy and open nature took lightly against new impressions, which could make his art a certain lack of spirituality. The studiane and his sketches show the most beautiful paintings. Fearnley was, with fresh natural essence, fine color and lush creature in brush strokes.

Fearnley contracted typhoid and died in January 1842 when he was only 39 years old. He was buried on Südlicher Friedhof in Munich. In 1922, his son arranged to have his father's mortal remains moved to Our Savior's Cemetery.
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