The Extreme North of Peder Balke

Peder Balke grew up in the Norwegian countryside, where he used to decorate farmhouses in the neighborhood to pay for his education. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, he undertook formal training as an engraver and painter, including at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. There he was a pupil of acclaimed Norwegian artist Johan Christian Dahl—the father of the golden age of Norwegian Romantic painting. He is said to have introduced Balke to another giant of the period, Caspar David Friedrich. With both of them, Balke shared a fascination for portraying the sublime, untameable power of nature.

Life-Changing Travels

Balke spent a large part of the 1930s travelling. During this time, he consolidated his craftsmanship but his experiences also served as an inspiration for his paintings for the rest of his life. Particularly impactful was his tour of the northernmost part of Norway, the Finnmark region, where he reached what became one of his favorite subjects—the North Cape.

Throughout his life, Balke painted the North Cape and surrounding areas under different lights and guises. Always untameable, nature is the undoubted protagonist of Balke’s paintings. Humanity plays the rather insignificant role of marvelled observer. His early works of the 1830s and 1840s were relatively successful, with paintings sold to the Royal Palace of Sweden and even the King of France for the Palace of Versailles.

With time, the memories of the journey made way for more imaginative renditions of the Arctic landscapes he saw and loved. Perhaps hinting at his own nostalgia, his subjects turned more realistic than real. Sharply spiked peaks, barren plains, and endless skies dominate the view, conveying a sense of solitude and wistfulness.

From Trade to Hobby

Unfortunately for Balke, his commercial success as a painter was short-lived. In the 1860s, he decided to give up painting altogether as a profession, instead pursuing a career in politics. Amongst other achievements, he laid out the plans for an affordable housing suburb for low-paid workers, which he called Balkeby, now within the boundaries of Norway’s capital Oslo. Balke continued to paint as a hobby, his subjects always going back to his momentous journey.

With time, his landscapes turned starker, darker, and more abstract. He began to paint on small canvases and with a monochromatic black-and-white palette, perhaps recalling his early engraver training. His later experiments convey an even stronger sense of desolation and unsettlement from an artist who clenched on the memory of a journey that made a permanent mark on his life.

Balke died in Norway in 1887. His collection is now primarily spread across Norway and Sweden, with a number of paintings also in private collections. Unjustly forgotten until the 20th century, Balke is a remarkable painter of Norwegian Romanticism. Dark and moody, but also deep and majestic, his works thoroughly deserve more time in the light.