Editing Nicolai Abildgaard (section)

=== Student travels ===
[[File:Den sårede Filoktet.jpg|thumb|250px|left|''[[The Wounded Philoctetes]]'' (1775)]]
Although artists of that time usually journeyed to Paris for further studies, Abildgaard chose to travel to [[Rome]], where he stayed from 1772 to 1777.<ref name="EB" /> He took a side trip to [[Naples]] in 1776 with [[Jens Juel (painter)|Jens Juel]]. His ambitions focused in the [[genre]] of [[history painting]]. While in Rome, he studied [[Annibale Carracci]]'s [[fresco]]es at the [[Palazzo Farnese]] and the paintings of [[Raffaello Santi|Rafael]], [[Titian]], and [[Michelangelo Buonarroti|Michelangelo]]. In addition he studied various other artistic disciplines ([[sculpture]], [[architecture]], [[Interior decoration|decoration]], [[mural|wall paintings]]) and developed his knowledge of [[mythology]], [[Ancient history|antiquities]], [[anatomy]], and [[Perspective (graphical)|perspective]].<ref name="dbl" />

In the company of [[Sweden|Swedish]] sculptor [[Johan Tobias Sergel]] and painter [[Johann Heinrich Füssli]], he began to move away from the classicism he had learned at the Academy. He developed an appreciation for the literature of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Homer]], and [[Ossian]] (the putative Gaelic poet). He worked with themes from [[Greek mythology|Greek]] as well as [[Norse mythology]], which placed him at the forefront of Nordic [[Romantic nationalism|romanticism]]. He left Rome in June 1777 with the hope of becoming professor at the Academy in Copenhagen. He stopped for a stay in Paris and arrived in [[Denmark]] in December of the same year.