Norwegian Seacoast During a Storm

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl depicted his native Norway in dramatic landscapes that used figures to evoke the grandiose scale of nature. This etching—one of four created by the artist—shows the aftermath of a storm. A ship floats damaged in the distance while a man and his dog sit despondent on a massive rock nearby. Dahl rendered the sky and churning waves in jagged etched lines that suggest the violent movement and force of the sea outside Bergen, where he grew up. He considered this composition to be among his very best works. Johan Christian Clausen Dahl described this print in his diary as depicting “the morning after a stormy night where a man has escaped from a ship stranded on the rocks.”