Asmus Jacob Carstens belongs to the record of art as a figure whose work outlasted the taste that first received it.
The record lists Asmus Jacob Carstens as German history painter (1754–1798).
Asmus Jacob Carstens was born at Schleswig in 1754. His recorded nationality is Denmark. He trained at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Academies set the rules in this period - what counted as a serious subject, and who was allowed to train.
He worked as painter, cooper and graphic designer.
Among his best-known works are Bacchus and Cupid and Fingal´s Battle with the Spirit of Loda. Art history is a record of what got kept, which is not the same as what was best.
That the work was made in Denmark shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Asmus Jacob Carstens died in 1798, aged 44. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- Notable work: Bacchus and Cupid
- Notable work: Fingal´s Battle with the Spirit of Loda
