Holger Danske siddende i rustning

11. september 1743

Born

1772

Rome rather than Paris

Although artists of the time usually went to Paris for further study, Abildgaard, whose ambitions lay in history painting, chose Rome. There he studied Annibale Carracci’s frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese and the paintings of Raphael, Titian and Michelangelo, as well as sculpture, architecture, decoration and wall painting, mythology, antiquities, anatomy and perspective.

1772–1777

Sergel and Füssli: a turn towards Romanticism

In the company of the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and the painter Johann Heinrich Füssli, Abildgaard began to move away from academic classicism and came to love Shakespeare, Homer and Ossian. Themes from Greek and Norse mythology placed him at the forefront of Nordic Romanticism.

1778

Professor at the Academy of Art

Soon after joining the Academy Abildgaard was appointed to a professorship, teaching mythology and anatomy as well as neoclassical painting. His pupils included Asmus Jacob Carstens, the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and the painters Johan Ludvig Lund and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

February 1794

The Christiansborg fire destroys his canvases

The fire at Christiansborg Palace destroyed seven of the ten monumental paintings of the grand cycle. The project stopped, and with it the painter’s income.

4. juni 1809

Died