Johannes Flintoe

Johannes Flintoe was a Norwegian painter born in Copenhagen. He was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1802, where he was strongly influenced by Christian A. Lorentzen and Nicolai A. Abildgaard. Flintoe came to Oslo in 1811, where he worked as a teacher at the Art School from 1819 to 1851 and also made theater decorations, transparencies, drawings for the art decoration and more.

His greatest decorative work was the decoration of the antechamber of the public chamber, the Bird Room, at the Royal Palace (1839-1841). He designed it as an open pergola with climbing plants, birds and Norwegian landscapes in the background, following the idea of ​​the palace architect Hans DF Linstow. The richly ornamented roof cornice introduces the "dragon style". He also painted portraits in a cool classical style. From 1819 to 1825 Flintoe traveled to Hallingdal, Sogn, Telemark, Hardanger, Valdres, Jotunheimen and Trøndelag, and he processed his impressions of the majestic and artistically as yet undiscovered mountain landscape in a long series of gouaches. In 1835 he exhibited them in Oslo and Copenhagen together with popular cosmoramas (picture collections). With these gouaches (nine of which are now in the National Gallery in Oslo, including Myrhorn in Jostedal, Slindebirken and Bjønnestigvarden, Aurland) he stands as the forerunner of the romantic Norwegian landscape school and JC Dahl, although stylistically he retained many features of 18th-century prospect art.

With keen observation and humour, he also gave vivid descriptions of Norwegian folk life. A series of lithographic drawings was published in 1838-1840 under the title Reiscener i Norge with text by Maurits Hansen. His work for Norwegian cultural institutions such as the Tegneskolen and the National Gallery in Oslo, as well as his many years of teaching, were also significant. Among his pupils were Hans Hansen, Julius O. Middelthun, Johan J. Bennetter, Johan F. Eckersberg and Hans F. Gude. In 1851 he returned to Copenhagen, where he lived for the rest of his life.