Paintings in Lars von Trier films.

Source: https://papiroandmint.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/lars-von-triers-paintings-references

"Portrait of a Little Girl, Elise Købke, with a Cup," Carl Christian Constantin Hansen, 1850.

Hansen (1804-1880) was one of the big names in the Danish Golden Age of painting (mostly the first half of the 19th century), which itself borrowed heavily from German Romanticism, the influence of which can be seen here.

His father was a portrait painter, and his godmother was Constanze Mozart (!), and his family traveled from Rome to Vienna to Copenhagen while he was still an infant. After his training as an artist, he traveled all over Europe, painting landscapes, mythological scenes, altarpieces, and portraits like this one. He did a series of paintings based on Norse mythology, intending to create a sort of national art of Denmark.

The poor thing here looks profoundly bored and uninterested. I know nothing of her, but I'm guessing from her name that she was a relative of Hansen's wife.

I still prefer the Skagen school, myself!

From the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.

"Girl and Pug in an Automobile," Gerda Wegener, 1927.

Wegener (1885-1940) is someone I've featured before, but she's always worth featuring. I love this Art Deco painting, which on the surface is mild and inocuous...a woman and her dog in a car, on what seems to be an early spring day. What could be more everyday?

All is not what it appears. The woman is Lili Ilse Elvenes, aka Lili Elbe, Wegener's partner, who was trans and one of the earliest known successful recipients of gender-affirming surgery, in 1930. However, for a couple of decades Wegener had been painting haunting portraits of a sexy, almond-eyed femme fatale...and it was a bit of scandal when it emerged in 1913 that this gorgeous woman was assigned male at birth.

Elbe sadly passed away in 1931, from complications of an attempt to transplant a uterus into her body. Wegener remarried briefly, and her painting style fell out of fashion. She died poor and half-forgotten, but her work has been rediscovered and acclaimed.

From a private collection.

"A Pergola, Italy," C. W. Eckersberg, 1814-16.

Dubbed "The Father of Danish Painting," Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853) was a celebrated Neoclassical painter and teacher who had an enormous influence on what was later called the Danish Golden Age.

Studying under such luminaries as Jean-Louis David, he spent some time in Florence and Rome, where he painted this image. It's unusual for his Roman works, as generally they're very strictly symmetrical and done with painstaking brushstrokes; this has SOME symmetry but also has the riotous grapevine, and uses broader brushstrokes.

Looks like a cool place for a glass of wine, eh?

From the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.

"Still Life with Fish," Carl Bloch, 1878.

Bloch (1834-1890) was a Danish Neoclassical painter. He started off painting genre scenes of everyday rural life, but expanded into historical and religious works, and had letters of admiration from Hans Christian Andersen.

Although he was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, his work is hugely influential on the denomination, who praise the lack of "Catholic" elements and imagery, and much Mormon art and media base themselves on Bloch's religious work.

This somewhat humorous scene, however, is from his more mature period. Bloch died young, of cancer, and his passing was considered quite a blow to the Nordic art world.

From the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.