The 56 Artworks of Peder Balke

Majestic mountains and immense, churning clouds are indifferent to the course of a steamer chugging along the coast, trailed by gulls. This work, a tour de force of Balke’s ability to dematerialize form through the use of a limited palette, strikes a balance between painterly effect and a poetic vis...

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In this desolate scene, trees and mountains seem to part ways to admit crepuscular winter light. Like his contemporaries, Balke was drawn to untamed landscapes that were characteristically Norwegian.In this composition and others, Balke deliberately left loosely brushed brown paint—essentially a mid...

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The Sarpsfossen, on the Glomma River at Sarpsborg in southeastern Norway, is one of the largest and most powerful waterfalls in Europe. This work’s picturesque composition, vivid colors, and bold impasto demonstrate that the artist never entirely abandoned certain elements of the decorative style in...

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Balke visited the North Cape only once, in 1832, but the experience became a touchstone of his imagination for the rest of his life. The tenebrous palette and expressive brushwork seen in this moonlit view are characteristic of Balke’s mature style, which stands in contrast to the more restrained na...

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In the 1860s, Balke developed a radical simplification of form and a directness in the way he applied paint to the support. In this hallucinatory view, a ghostly mountain rises through clouds and mist, its base entirely obscured by dense fog. The rocks and surf are rendered with slightly more bodied...

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This is one of Balke’s largest easel paintings, and it is certainly among his most accomplished and sophisticated works made in a descriptive, naturalistic style. The view is animated by the rough waves and sea-sculpted rocks, the majestic forms of the clouds, the arc of seabirds, and the sunrise. T...

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By the time Balke executed this work, dated 1853 at the lower right, the North Cape had become a signature image. He employed his materials cannily: the smooth paper support is well suited to the flatly applied, gradated tones of the sky, which is clear, save for the quickly worked clouds that form ...

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