Philipsen, Theodor (1840-1920)

Found his artistic identity in 1880ernes open air painting and got through his involvement in the French impressionism of great importance for the subsequent generations of Danish Colourists. He grew up in a

wealthy Danish merchant family in a large property in the downtown Copenhagen. His father belonged to one of the Jewish bourgeoisie genera, and the home was characterized by broad-mindedness, a rationalistic way of thinking and a far-reaching cultural formation, and Philipsen and his brothers came as children on annual formation traveling around in Europe. The greatest interest was however, animals, Philipsens he as a child eagerly drew and modeled. It was therefore natural that he got an agricultural education with an uncle on Højagergård. First in the 1860s learned Philipsen through one of his brothers the painter His Smidth knowing, which contributed to his decision to become an artist. Philipsens training at the Academy, was interrupted by the war in 1864, where he was drafted and fought at the front. After the defeat he continued at the model school, where such Vermehrens requirements for the study of the reality and respect for past came to permeate his development. From public collections in Copenhagen known Philipsen already J.Th. Lacko depictions of animals and had learned to appreciate 1600-century Dutch landscape and animal painters, especially Paul Potter. All schooling despite was and it was the love for nature and for livestock, there was the real driving force in the art Philipsens. The earliest extant works of him are oil studies of animals in the barn from the beginning 1860ernes. He made her debut in 1865 with a statuette of a few cows. During the summer took Philipsen on country to find motifs, in 1865 he painted together with William Groth in Kalø Cove. Young bovine animals in a meadow from here is greatly influenced by Vilhelm Kyhn, if "Hollow Academy" Philipsen had begun frequenting. From the Drum Chamber near the painted Philipsen in 1870 a flock of sheep that is closed off to some calves, a picture with clear Dutch influences. The opinion, however, was far more natural Philipsens realistic than the artistic role models. It was not just his thorough knowledge of animal behavior, but also the time-bound pursuits against a larger truth. In 1872, he was a patron in Christian Juel-Brockdorff, who until his death in the late 1880s invited him to spend the summers at Mejlgaard on Djursland, where he painted some of his best work. With Philipsens fordomfrie and critical attitude, it was natural for him to seek inspiration in Paris, and together with l. Tuxen, he took classes at the Bonnats school, an unusual step for an artist in 35 years. Philipsen learned through intensive croquis drawing here to catch the characteristic in a movement and to give his pictures a more superior overall effect. Tuxen tells in his memoirs, 1928, he was particularly preoccupied with Impressionism and Philipsen, if painters in the 1870s held their protest exhibitions, but contemporary sources do not indicate that it came so early. Philipsen got closer knowledge of the first radical French color art through the friendship with the Belgian painter Rémy Cogghe, as he was with Spain in 1882, and the following year in Rome. Only then developed Philipsen home, more than 40 years old, his distinctive painting that comes to light, color, nature and animals, and which intrinsically has attached his name to saltholm and Amager. While during his first stay in Italy Philipsen had painted the monumental A operation oxen in the Roman campagne, 1878, which was rooted in an older picture tradition, was the light-filled images he painted in 1882 in Spain and North Africa's strong sun during his second long stays abroad of a completely new character. Outside of a accisebod in Granada differs radically from his earlier painting and shows him as an excellent painter of architecture. In the donkey stable in Tunis is both color choices and penselsføring freed. Street with camels in Tunis contains a refined game of reflexes, and animal flock violent hurry witnesses about a study by Delacroix. Landscape images from Sora 1883 and the horses, who watered on Via Flaminia in Rome, denotes a definitive change. Among the new pictures from Denmark is Milking Philipsens square by Mejlgård from 1884 it first. Philipsen developed now an extremely personal outdoor painting, which gradually became a color art, taking at the same time he limited his motive world to calves and cows, the landscape and the weather conditions. Saltholm in the middle of the sound, where the cows go freely throughout the summer, he made to his preferred stay place, and here he created through the next well over 30 years a large number of works, not only in oil but also in pastel. Philipsens interest in Impressionism was strengthened by the French painter Paul Gauguin, who in the winter of 1884-85 stayed in Copenhagen. He taught Philipsen to use small brushes and short, firm strokes, tells Karl Madsen. Philipsen also owned one of his pictures. Around 1890, where Philipsen had settled in Kastrup, he painted masterpieces like Kastrupvejen at Copenhagen and from the road to Kastrup after Impressionist model, but in a personal interpretation. Saltholm images and pictures from, inter alia, forest. Animal haven can be seen as a quest for completely to master color and it in a given motif world and Philipsens painting is always marked by an intense love of the unspoiled nature. Parallel cultivated Philipsen modeling and was last in the 1880s with the circle around the Decoration Association. Together with the brothers Skovgaard, Th. Bindesbøll and Elise Konstantin-Hansen, he worked with Potter j. Wallmann in Utterslev and later with g. Eifrig in Valby with modeling of small ceramic groups of animals whose movements and psychological interaction he portrays. Technically, they are imperfect, clumsy as the animals themselves, but always charming. His ability is demonstrated, however, in a distinguished work as the Roman Bull from 1889, cast in bronze. Once he gave draft a larger work, a fountain on Blågaards Space in Nørrebro in Copenhagen, which was not realized. Philipsen played a significant role in 1880ernes modern breakthrough, but was only directly communicative through his painting. Though his sympathies was no doubt, but he did not take part in arts policy, which irked, among other things. Karl Madsen, as he stood near. Confidentiality he had in common with his friend Viggo Johansen. Raadhusudstillingen 1901 is due, however, to a large extent Philipsens initiative. Philipsen was completely usnobbet and uninterested in external honors, which hampered his economy. Despite its age, it was typical for him in 1891 to join the exhibition the free Exhibition opponent, and he was a model, among other things. for the young peasant painters, painters from Funen. Through his art, who never sought the spectacular, came Philipsen to play a significant role as a facilitator of the French impressionismes ideas that almost up to our time have dominated large parts of Danish painting.