The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Oesterley, Karl

OESTERLEY, ės'tĕr-lĭ, Karl, son of Karl Wilhelm Oesterley (q.v.), German painter: b. Göttingen, 23 Jan. 1839. After studying in the Hanover Polytechnic under his father, he went to Düsseldorf (1857), and began under Deger his essays as a religious painter. On a visit in Lübeck (where he copied Hans Memling's ‘Passion of Christ,’ 1865) he was attracted to landscape and architectural pieces and was so successful in this domain that he thenceforth devoted himself to landscape. Since 1870 he has generally derived his motif from Norwegian scenery. His pictures are distinguished for their dazzling color, transparent atmosphere, distinctness in light and texture and grandeur of conception. Among them are ‘Midnight near Lofoden’; ‘Mountain Gorge in Norway’; ‘Romsdalsfiord’; ‘Scene on the Coast of Northern Norway’ (1879, in the Museum at Breslau); ‘Raft Sound’ (1879, Breslau Museum); ‘Fishing on the Norwegian Coast,’ ‘View on Salten Fiord’ (1882, Hamburg Gallery); ‘Lodenwand on North Fiord’ (1885, National Gallery, Berlin); ‘Romsdal Fiord’ (1891, Leipzig Museum).