HANSEN, Constantin

A group of Danish artists are gathered in a room in Rome. They are discussing art. Speaking from the floor, the architect Gottlieb Bindesbøll (1800-1856) relates the experiences of his recent travels in Greece, a country that was unfamiliar territory to most Europeans at the time due to the many years of Turkish occupation. The other artists listen with varying degrees of interest and attention.

From the left the persons depicted are: the artist himself, Bindesbøll, Martinus Rørbye (1803-1848), Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-1873), Albert K�chler (1803-1886), Ditlev Blunck (1798-1853), and Jorgen Sonne (1801-1890). With its serious atmosphere the painting stands out among the pictures of carefree Italian living that Danish audiences saw so many of at the time.

In June 1838, as part of his extended Italian sojourn (1835-43), Hansen visited the Hellenic complex at Paestum, about fifty miles south of Naples. To compose this view, he stood within the so-called Temple of Neptune, using its massive fluted Doric columns to frame the distant Temple of Athena. This study owes a debt to Hansen’s early training as an architect, a career he abandoned in order to study with the leading lights of the golden age of Danish painting, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his pupil Christen Købke.

During his time in Rome Constantin Hansen painted oil studies in the open air to provide variety in between his more complex figure compositions. One of his freest and most original studies is this picture of the Titus Arch near the Forum Romanum. He depicted it from a rather unconventional angle. The arch is not seen from the front, but from the side, thereby dramatically shortening the fa�ade. The picture does not give a representative view of the building, meaning that it was not a travel or tourist picture intended for audiences back in Copenhagen. It is a study done exclusively for the artist’s own sake.