Eckersberg paved the way for modern painting. Without the understated transition away from classical history painting to studies of nature’s essential forms effected by him and other artists such as J.A.D. Ingres, later artists like Paul Cézanne or Edvard Weie would not have had the same starting point for their work with the picture plane, nor for their poetic liberation of colour itself. In his own day, Eckersberg struck a highly successful balance between fundamental respect for the actual visual appearance of the physical world and a keen sense for the formal architecture of paintings.