Данияның алтын ғасыры: 19 ғасырдың бірінші жартысының өркендеуі

Period in Denmark during the first half of the 19th century
The Danish Golden Age (Den danske guldalder) covers a period of exceptional creative production in Denmark, especially during the first half of the 19th century. Although Copenhagen had suffered from fires, bombardment and national bankruptcy, the arts took on a new period of creativity catalysed by Romanticism from Germany. The period is probably most commonly associated with the Golden Age of Danish Painting from 1800 to around 1850 which encompasses the work of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his students, including Wilhelm Bendz, Christen Købke, Martinus Rørbye, Constantin Hansen and Wilhelm Marstrand, as well as the sculpture of Bertel Thorvaldsen. It also saw the development of Danish architecture in the Neoclassical style. Copenhagen, in particular, acquired a new look, with buildings designed by Christian Frederik Hansen and Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll. In relation to music, the Golden Age covers figures inspired by Danish romantic nationalism including J. P. E. Hartmann, Hans Christian Lumbye, Niels W. Gade and the ballet master August Bournonville. Literature centred on Romantic thinking, introduced in 1802 by the Norwegian German philosopher Henrik Steffens. Key contributors were Adam Oehlenschläger, Bernhard Severin Ingemann, N. F. S. Grundtvig and Hans Christian Andersen—the proponent of the modern fairytale. Søren Kierkegaard furthered philosophy while Hans Christian Ørsted achieved fundamental progress in science. The Golden Age thus had a profound effect not only on life in Denmark but, with time, on the international front too.

The origins of the Golden Age can be traced back to around the beginning of the 19th century, which was a very rough period for Denmark Norway. Copenhagen, the centre of the country's intellectual life, first experienced huge fires in 1794 and 1795 which destroyed both Christiansborg Palace and large areas of the inner city. In 1801, as a result of the country's involvement in the League of Armed Neutrality, the Royal Navy successfully attacked a Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. In 1807, on rumours that the French might force Denmark Norway to close the Baltic to their shipping, the British bombarded Copenhagen, burning large portions of the city. Then in 1813, as a result of the country's inability to support the costs of war, the Dano Norwegian government declared a state of bankruptcy. To make matters worse, Norway ceased to be part of the Oldenburg realms when it was ceded to Sweden the following year, at the Treaty of Kiel. These events nevertheless provided new opportunities for Copenhagen. Architects and planners widened the streets, constructing beautifully designed Neoclassical buildings offering a brighter yet intimate look. At the time, with a population of only 100,000, the city was still quite small, built within the confines of the old ramparts. As a result, the leading figures of the day met frequently, sharing their ideas, bringing the arts and the sciences together. Henrik Steffens was perhaps the most effective proponent of the Romantic idea. In a series of lectures in Copenhagen, he successfully conveyed the ideas behind German romanticism to the Danes. Influential thinkers, such as Oehlenschläger and Grundtvig were quick to take up his views. It was not long before Danes from all branches of the arts and sciences were involved in a new era of Romantic nationalism, later known as the Danish Golden Age. The main period of the Golden Age took place during the first half of the nineteenth century. Around that time, Danish culture suffered from the outbreak of the First Schleswig War (1848–1851) and then the Second one in 1864. In addition, political reforms involving the end of the absolute monarchy in 1848 and the adoption of the Danish constitution the following year signalled the beginning of a new era. Finally, the extension of Copenhagen beyond the old ramparts during the 1850s opened up new horizons for urban expansion. It was not until 1890 that the Danish philosopher Valdemar Vedel first used the term Guldalderen or Golden Age to describe the period. In 1896, author Vilhelm Andersen saw the Golden Age initiated by Henrich Steffens as the richest period in the cultural history of Denmark.

The art historian Niels Laurits Høyen who taught at the Academy encouraged his students to turn to landscape painting. Johan Thomas Lundbye, Christen Købke, P. C. Skovgaard, Dankvart Dreyer, Louis Gurlitt and Martinus Rørbye were among those who developed a new approach to the genre, concentrating on scenes from the Danish countryside.

A new type of genre painting also emerged during the Golden Age. Interiors depicting the middle and upper classes in the right settings were a favorite motif. Portraits followed the same pattern.

Bertel Thorvaldsen, strongly influenced by his lengthy stay in Rome from 1797, created many internationally recognized works in his pure Neoclassical style. His breakthrough was Jason with the Golden Fleece which was highly praised by Antonio Canova and purchased by Thomas Hope, a wealthy British art collector. Other well known works are the large Statue of Christ in Copenhagen Cathedral and the Lion Monument in Lucerne. Many of his works can be seen in Copenhagen's Thorvaldsens Museum which was not completed until 1848, four years after his death. Other contributors to sculpture in the Golden Age include Hermann Ernst Freund, whose work centred on Scandinavian gods, and Herman Wilhelm Bissen, who sculpted contemporary figures such as Landsoldaten (The Foot Soldier), a victory monument to the war of 1848–1851.

During the Golden Age, Copenhagen in particular acquired a new look as architects inspired by neo classicism repaired much of the damage caused by fire in 1795 and by the British bombardment of the city in 1807. Building on the experience of C. F. Harsdorff
in the late 18th century, the main proponent of Classicism in the Golden age was Christian Frederik Hansen who developed a rather severe style with clean, simple forms and large, unbroken surfaces inspired by the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. From 1800, he was in charge of all major building projects in Copenhagen where he designed the Copenhagen City Hall & Courthouse (1805–1815) on Nytorv. He was also responsible for rebuilding the Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke) and designing the surrounding square (1811–1829). In 1800, Hansen was also charged with rebuilding Christiansborg Palace which had burnt down in 1794. He worked with Gustav Friedrich Hetsch who completed the interiors. Unfortunately, the palace burnt down once again in 1884. All that remains is the magnificent chapel which, with its Ionic columns, conveys a sense of antiquity. Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll is remembered above all for designing Thorvaldsens Museum. In 1822, as a young man, he had experienced Karl Friedrich Schinkel's classicism in Germany and France and had met the German born architect and archaeologist Franz Gau who introduced him to the colourful architecture of antiquity. His uncle, Jonas Collin, who was an active art and culture official under Frederick VI, awakened the King's interest in a museum for Bertel Thorvaldsen, the Danish Icelandic sculptor, and asked Bindesbøll to make some sketches for the building. As Bindensbøll's designs stood out from those of other architects, he was given a commission to transform the Royal Carriage Depot and Theatre Scenery Painting Building into a museum. Emulating the construction of the Erechtheion and the Parthenon as freestanding buildings released from the traditional urban plan of closed streets, he completed the work in 1848. Andreas Hallander and Johan Martin Quist were among those who rebuilt the houses in the older sections of Copenhagen which had been destroyed by fire.

The 19th century also saw the emergence of a number of Danish composers who were inspired by Romantic nationalism. Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805–1900) contributed to song and the piano repertory as well as to opera and ballet music. From 1843 until his death, he was the organist at the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen. His works are not only romantic but generally inspired by the old Nordic legends. They had a strong influence on a later generation of composers such as Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen and Peter Erasmus Lange Muller. Hartmann's wife, Emma Hartmann, was herself a notable composer. Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) was employed as the first music director at the Copenhagen amusement park Tivoli when it opened in 1843. Here he had a platform for presenting a large foreign and Danish repertory, including his many waltzes and gallops. In 1839, he had heard a Viennese orchestra play music by Johann Strauss, after which he composed in the same style, eventually earning the nickname "The Strauss of the North". One of his most popular pieces, associated with Tivoli, is Champagnegaloppen (the Champagne Galop), which starts with the happy sound of a champagne cork popping. It has been used in several Danish films including Reptilicus (1961), and Champagnegaloppen (1938). Niels W. Gade (1817–1890) participated in the development of Musikforeningen (the Music Society) which had been founded in 1836 with the purpose of extending and improving the understanding of classical music. He became its conductor in 1850, and under his management a number of masterpieces of choral music were given their first performance in Denmark, among them Bach's St. Matthew Passion in 1875. At the conservatory in Copenhagen, Gade helped teach future generations, including Edvard Grieg and Carl Nielsen. In the spirit of Romantic nationalism, he composed eight symphonies, a violin concerto, chamber music, organ and piano pieces and a number of large scale cantatas, among them Elverskud, the most famous Danish work of its kind. A second generation of significant composers of this period include Peter Heise, Emil Hartmann, Asger Hamerik, August Winding or C. F. E. Horneman.

A major contributor to the ballet scene during the Golden Age was August Bournonville (1805–1879), the celebrated ballet master. From 1830 to 1877, he was the choreographer at the Royal Danish Ballet, for which he created more than fifty ballets admired for their exuberance, lightness, and beauty. He created a style which, although influenced by the Paris ballet, is entirely his own. Bournonville's best known works are La Sylphide (1836), Napoli (1842), Le Conservatoire (1849), The Kermesse in Bruges (1851) and A Folk Tale (1854). He drew on a number of different composers including Holger Simon Paulli, Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann and Niels Gade. The ballets are widely performed today, not only in Denmark but worldwide, especially in the United States.

One name stands out above all others among those who contributed to science during the Danish Golden Age, that of Hans Christian Ørsted, the prominent physicist and chemist known for observing that electric currents induce magnetic fields, an important aspect of electromagnetism. He shaped post Kantian philosophy and advances in science throughout the late 19th century. In 1824, Ørsted founded Selskabet for Naturlærens Udbredelse (SNU), a society to disseminate knowledge of the natural sciences. He was also the founder of predecessor organizations which eventually became the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. Ørsted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment. He was convinced that all things in the universe were related, both materially and spiritually. He described this in his philosophical work Ånden i naturen (The Spirit in Nature). Ørsted contributed strongly to the Golden Age, especially through his close friendship with Hans Christian Andersen. With the exception of Norwegian born Ludvig Holberg, no Danish writer before 1870 exercised so wide an influence as Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger. His work was to awaken his compatriots' enthusiasm for the poetry and religion of their ancestors, to the extent that his name remains to this day synonymous with Scandinavian romance. In architecture, when designing the Thorvaldsen Museum, Michael Bindesbøll gave special attention to liberating the building from its surroundings. His free perception of space served as a guiding principle for the cities and buildings of the future. The choreographer, August Bournonville, resisting many of the excesses of the romantic era ballets, gave equal emphasis to male and female roles in his work at a time when European ballet emphasized the ballerina. N. F. S. Grundtvig exerted considerable influence on education, promoting a spirit of freedom, poetry and disciplined creativity. Opposing compulsion and examinations, he advocated unleashing human creativity according to the universally creative order of life. A spirit of freedom, cooperation and discovery was to be kindled in individuals, in science, and in society as a whole. Søren Kierkegaard has also strongly influenced philosophy and literature right up to the present day. Among the many who have profited from his ideas are Jean Paul Sartre, Niels Bohr and W. H. Auden. Hans Christian Ørsted's scientific advances contributed fundamentally to chemistry, with his work on aluminium, and especially to physics, with his conclusive research on electromagnetism. Finally, many of the works of the painters and sculptors of the period continue to be exhibited in the world's finest museums and galleries. Some, like Christen Købke, have attracted renewed interest in recent years.