Born in Norway and trained in Denmark, Dahl made his
career primarily in Dresden, Germany. There he befriended Caspar David
Friedrich (1774–1840), whose landscapes suffused with spiritual meaning left a
deep mark on Dahl’s imagination. Imbued with Dahl’s knowledge of mountainous
regions in Northern Europe, this tiny landscape opens a surprisingly expansive
vista: approaching a ragged outcropping, where fir trees give way to bare rock,
the beholder gazes up at a the moon as it breaks through clouds. Dahl signed
and dated this painting November 27, 1822. The moon that night was in the
waxing gibbous phase: nearly full.