"Moonrise" Sheds Light on Art

  University research is bringing a previously unheralded artist to the attention of a much wider audience.

Johan Christian Dahl, one of the foremost landscape painters of the nineteenth century, has been called the father of Norwegian painting, yet remains relatively unknown outside northern Europe.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham, in the West Midlands and at the heart of the UK, has built an exhibition around the gallery's purchase of Dahl's exquisite “Mother and Child by the Sea”.

The exhibition, “Moonrise Over Europe - JC Dahl and Romantic Landscape” is looking to expand understanding of the romantic landscape painters of the nineteenth century, locating the Dahl painting within the romantic movement and investigating the fascination with the moon that came to preoccupy Romantic painters, especially in northern Europe, between 1770 and the mid 1800s.

The Barber Institute is making a name for itself as a developer of exhibitions based on and highlighting academic research. Previous exhibitions have featured little known 17^th century masters Bartholomeus Breenbergh and Mathias Stom as well as more familiar names such as Turner and Rossetti. Their policy of steering away from exhibitions as blockbusters means that they are successfully raising the profile and appeal of lesser-known artists, such as Johan Christian Dahl.

“Moonrise Over Europe” has become the Institute's most successful exhibition to date, eclipsing exhibitions based on the works of better known artists such as Turner and Rossetti, bringing the work of Dahl out of the darkness and into the light!

Footage:
- The Barber Institute for Fine Arts
- Research being conducted
- Various shots of “Moonrise over Europe” exhibition
- Detail of paintings

Interviewees:
- Paul Spencer-Longhurst, Senior Curator, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
- Richard Verdi, Director, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts and Professor of Fine Art, University of Birmingham