Wilhelm Marstrand 
It we were to mention one name as the greatest among Danish 
painters, that one must be Marstrand. 
Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-1873) may justly claim this dominant 
position by virtue of the broad scope of his achievements, the richness 
of his temperament, and the abundance of his production. His genius 
is freer, the dimensions of his art ampler, than in most of our artists. 
When Danish pictorial art first won a name for itself outside of our 
own country, it was the intimate and sensitive conception of nature 
and human life in their more naive and artless forms, together with the 
prevailing homeliness of tone, which first caught the eye of foreigners 
and impressed them with its quiet genuineness. 
Marstrand, however, was not satisfied to be merely an intimate 
portrayer of simple, everyday scenes. It is true, he too began by 
painting homely Copenhagen motifs, infusing into them his own 
vivacity and humor. But it was his first encounter with the life of the 
South, as he met it when he visited Italy for the first time, which made 
of the young, sensitively responsive artist an interpreter of beauty and 
the joy of living, whose sprightliness swept away the banal sweetish¬ 
ness too often seen in the art of other Northern visitors to Italy. 
Marstrand not only sought out quaint and charming genre motifs, 
but essayed the bigger subjects such as the surging of festive crowds 
in the streets of the city. He was not only a keen observer of little 
things, but a master of large composition. 
It was this mastery of form which led him—though the step may 
seem a long one—from the gay Italian scenes of his youth to the monu¬ 
mental paintings that were to crown his later life-work. Chief among 
* these are the mural paintings in Christian IV’s Chapel in Roskilde 
Cathedral; the scene picturing the dedication of the University of 
Copenhagen, in the festival hall of that institution; and The Great 
Supper, in the State Museum of Art, to which the aged artist brought 
in from the streets his beloved children of the South to sit at the golden 
board of the hospitable host—all paintings in a grander style than 
Danish art had known before. They are the work of a master who 
has set himself a high goal, and have nothing of the dry academician; 
warmth of feeling and depth of temperament give them significance 
and vitality. It is temperament which more than anything else lifts 
Marstrand’s work to its high level and gives it the stamp of gen¬ 
uineness. 
Marstrand is the greatest humorist in Danish and probably in 
all Northern painting. While his eye is open to the beauty of 
humanity, he is a no less keen observer of the absurdities and frailties of 
his fellow-creatures. In this respect he and Holberg are congenial 
spirits. From the moment when he threw himself into the work of 
