Thomas Fearnley

Thomas Fearnley was a Norvegian romantic painter.

Born in 1802 in Halden, he studied at the The Royal School of Drawing of Christiania (modern Oslo), then respectively at the Art Academy in Copenhagen and the Art Academy in Stockholm, which he completed in 1827.

Early paintings of Fearnley were sometimes commissioned by the Swedish royal family, for which he made multiple study trips in Norway, along with completing his studies. He then went to Germany where he studied under Johan Christian Dahl, in Dresden.

In the 1830s, Fearnley traveled Europe extensively: Munich, Paris, London, Venice, Rome and the province of Naples, among others. He sketched widely during these trips and was for this reason called “the European” of the Norwegian art world.

His paintings were typically oil landscapes that depict wilderness and nature with a monumental attitude. In 1838, on his way home from Italy, he discovered one of his yet most famous motifs today: the Upper Grindelwald Glacier in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. At the time, the glacier was very close to the village and was therefore very accessible to the tourists.