''Two Men Before a Waterfall at Sunset'' is an 1823

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

by the Norwegian

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

Johan Christian Dahl Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (24 February 178814 October 1857), often known as or , was a Danish- Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting. He is often ...

It depicts Dahl and his friend and contemporary

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romanticism, German Romantic Landscape painting, landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti ...

standing in a landscape inspired by his native

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It pays home to Friedrich's 1819 work '' Two Men Contemplating the Moon''. The Norwegian Dahl settled in Dresden and worked there for most of his career, but continued to drawn inspiration from his homeland. The painting is today in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, having been received as a gift from

Christen Sveaas Christen Sveaas (born 18 June 1956) is a Norwegian businessman, investor, art collector and donor. He is the founder and sole owner of Kistefos AS, vice chairman of the board of the Kistefos Museum and chairman of the board of Anders Sveaas Allme ...

in 2019.Hollien p.194

References

Bibliography

* Hollien, Max. ''Gifts of Art: The Met’s 150th Anniversary''. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020 * Rewald, Sabine & Monrad, Kasper . ''Caspar David Friedrich: Moonwatchers''. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001. Paintings by Johan Christian Dahl 1823 paintings Landscape paintings Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art {{1820s-painting-stub