Carl Fredrik Aagard

Carl Fredrik Aagard (Carl Frederic Aagaard) 1833 Odense - 1895 Copenhagen, left his small town for Denmark's capital to study drawing at the Danish Royal Academy, Copenhagen was the center of a spectacular resurgence of the arts. By the middle of the 19th century such great figures as Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had come out of Copenhagen. The art of the first half of the 19th century in Copenhagen was perhaps the greatest achievement of Denmark's Golden Age. The sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and the painter Eckersberg led an artistic renaissance during the Golden Age that produced, with the establishment of an academy in Charlottenborg in 1754, many famous Danish artists. The Royal Collections, what was later to become the National Collection after the peaceful transition to a constitutional monarchy, actively supported these new artists, buying these "modern" oil paintings the moment they were exhibited.

In the face of such disasters as the overwhelming defeat of their Danish navy by the British in 1801, the English bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 that destroyed hundreds of buildings in the city, the declaration of national bankruptcy in 1813 and subsequent loss of Norway, Danish culture flourished with a willful energy and a unique character. Carl Frederic Aagaard began his oil painting career towards the end of this great period in Denmark and was instructed by the country's famous artists while at the Danish Royal Academy. In addition to studying drawing, Aagaard assisted his older brother, a glass engraver at his professional studio. Aagaard next studied in the studio of Hilker, an oil painter and he collaborated with Hilker on work at the University and other public buildings. It was his final teacher, the landscape oil painter Peter Kristian Skoovgaard, that was to be the most influential. In 1857 Aagaard exhibited his oil paintings for the first time to great success. He continued to exhibit and his trips to Switzerland and Italy helped to perfect his realism landscape oil painting style with such works of art as Pergola in Amalfi and Amalfi Di Cappuccini.