En kæmpehøj på Refsnæs

Carl Bloch's En kæmpehøj på Refsnæs (A Megalithic Tomb at Refsnæs, 1885) depicts one of Denmark's ancient burial mounds on the Refsnæs peninsula in northwestern Sjælland. Bloch was best known for his religious paintings — his images of Christ had achieved enormous popularity across the Protestant world — but he also painted Danish landscape with genuine affection. The megalithic tomb as subject carried romantic and national associations in Danish painting: these ancient remnants of the Bronze Age were visible reminders of Denmark's deep past, and painters from the Danish Golden Age had depicted them as symbols of national continuity.

Bloch renders the megalithic tomb in the realistic landscape tradition he had absorbed from the Danish Golden Age painters. The ancient stones of the burial chamber, weathered and partially grown over, are depicted with careful attention to their specific form and texture. The Refsnæs landscape — flat, coastal, characteristically Danish — provides a horizontal setting against which the tomb's stones rise as vertical monuments. His palette is cool and northern — the specific greys and muted greens of the Danish coastal landscape under variable light.