Asmus Jacob Carstens (May 10, 1754 – May 25, 1798) was a Danish-German painter.
He was born in Sanct Jürgen near Schleswig to a miller. He had a youthful passion for painting, but was placed in a mercantile house. After quitting his master in 1776, he went to Copenhagen, where he supported himself for seven years by drawing portraits in red chalk, producing during the time a large historical picture, the “Death of Æschylus,” and another painting, “Æolus and Ulysses.” In 1783 he went to Italy where he was much impressed by the work of Giulio Romano. His means did not permit him to go beyond Mantua, where he remained a month and then went to Lübeck, where he lived five years painting portraits.
He was then introduced by the poet Overbeck to a wealthy patron, by whose aid he went to Berlin, where his “Fall of the Angels,” a colossal picture containing over 200 figures, gained him a professorship in the academy of fine arts. Two years' labor in Berlin and a travelling pension enabled him in 1792 to go to Rome, and study the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. Afterward he spent some time in Dresden, studying the works of Albrecht Dürer.
He gradually produced some fine subject and historical paintings, e.g. “Platos Symposium” and the “Battle of Rossbach” which made him famous. He was appointed professor at Berlin, and in 1795 a great exhibition of his works was held in Rome, where he died in 1798. He mostly designed in water color and did the paintings in fresco; he rarely painted in oil. Carstens ranks as the founder of the later school of German historical painting.