The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Morten-Müller

MORTEN-MÜLLER, mōr'tĕn-mūl'lĕr, Norwegian painter: b. Holmestrand, Christianiafiord, 29 Feb. 1828; d. 1911. He began to Study art in Düsseldorf (1847) first under Tidemand and Eude, and later as a pupil in the academy under J. W. Schirmer. He removed to Stockholm in 1850, but in 1866 opened an art school in Christiania under government patronage. He returned to Düsseldorf in 1871 and devoted himself to setting forth the wild scenery of his native country in a series of vast canvases. Fiord, valley and mountain height are represented with fine imaginative yet truthful line and color. The most noteworthy of his landscapes are ‘Norwegian Landscape’ and ‘Entrance to Hardangerfiord’ (both in the National Gallery of Christiania); ‘A Fir Forest’ (in the Gallery at Hamburg); ‘Romsdalfiord,’ with historical figures put in by Tidemand (1876); ‘Start of the Fishing-boats by Night’; ‘Waterfall and Pine Forest’ (1879); ‘Fisherman's Cot in Christianiafiord’ (1880); ‘Woodland Lake by Moonlight’ (1892). His works combine romantic picturesqueness with color power of startling realism. In 1874 he was appointed court painter and member of the Stockholm Academy.