Classical and Modern Art in Oslo, Norway Dr. Law Chi Lim

Mention Norway, and the image of fjiords, blue sky, and clean air will spring to mind. But its capital, Oslo, is well worth a few days of visit for its world class museums and galleries and, as Lonely Planet puts it “[Oslo] rivals anywhere else on the European art trail”. Here are just two of the best in town.

The National Gallery This gallery houses Norway’s largest public collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture. While the museum does have 16th to 17th century European old masters and its fair share of Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin and Picasso, the main attractions are art from Norway. Yes, for a lot of visitors , perhaps the one thing that draws them to the National Gallery is to view Norway’s most prized cultural possession ,The Scream, by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch(1863-1944) who is famed for his vibrant colours and untamed brushstrokes and conveyance of deep human emotions . This painting (in fact there are four forms of the same painting), the target of dramatic thefts and recoveries over the years, has gained iconic status in western popular culture and is now firmly engrained in the collective cultural consciousness of the whole western society. The central figure (with its androgynous , skull-shaped head, elongated hands, wide eyes , flaring nostrils and ovoid mouth) has featured in advertising, Halloween costume , cartoons ( The Simpsons) , films ( Home Alone, Scream), and TV series ( Doctor Who). So, it is almost obligatory for any visitor to Oslo to go and see this painting at the National Gallery. . During my last visit to Oslo, apart from the several iconic paintings by Munch, I was pleasantly surprised to get to see some beautiful landscape paintings from Nordic artists that I have never known before. Take, for example, the paintings by Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (1788-1857) who is considered to be the first great romantic painter and founder of the “Golden Age” of Norwegian painting. Here is a pure naturalist, who pays attention to the details of rocks and trees, plants and meadows with extraordinary mastery while conveying particular moods and impressions. Standing in front of his paintings, one cannot help but be mesmerized by them. I was particularly intrigued by one his most famous works, View from Stalheim. In this painting, the afternoon sunshine is framed by peaks surrounding peaks and a rainbow, fully capturing the glory and magnificence of the mountains of Norway, and the small village at the centre affirms the painter’s passion for the Norway culture. Well, I was in Stalheim and have seen the same view just a couple of days before. While Dahl can be called the “Father of Norwegian Landscape painting”, it was his pupil Thomas Fearnley (1802-1842) who took the Norwegian landscape paintings to another level by turning his large compositions into theatre stages with dramatic lightings. His The Labro Falls at Kongsberg captures vividly the fury and wildness of nature. Look closely, and you will see that Fearnley has not forgotton the humble peasants struggling to survive against the forces of nature. Sadly, Fearnley (who was in fact of British ancestry but born and brought up in Norway) died relatively young at the age of 39. Otherwise , he would have given the world more of his dazzling works.

Astrup Fearnley Museum This small but wonderful private museum of contemporary art, opened in 2012 , was designed by the renowned architect, Renzo Piano, and located in a beautiful site where the city stretches into the Oslo Fjord . Its permanent collection includes iconic pieces by modern artists like Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer and Jeff Koons. Crossing a bridge in the approach to the museum, one is at once struck by the museum’s slanting glass roof which is shaped like a sail, echoing the many leisure sail boats in the sea adjacent to the museum. Outside, on the lawn of the outdoor sculpture park, people laze around in the sun and children play near the water, forming an idyllic picture. Inside the museum, the centre piece and prized collection is the 1993 creation by Damien Hirst , Madonna and Child Separated .Last time we were there , we were in time to catch the 4 pm guided tour in English and the guide’s explanation helped us to understand how Hirst’s piece ( which at first glance is just a grotesque and gruesome longitudinal cross-section of a cow with all its entrails and its calve separated in two glass boxes and fixed in formalin) is a combination of science+ art with an allusion to religion. Well , the all too familiar classic catholic icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus (Madonna and child) is due the fact that the human child cannot really walk independently until the age of around one and so any picture/painting/icon showing mother and child together must show the mother holding the child in her arms, whereas the newborn calve is able to walk immediately at birth to following the foot-steps of the mother cow and so can only be shown walking behind the mother if the composition is an allusion to the Madonna and Child icon. Apparently, this piece by Hirst was so grotesque and “thought provoking” that the Tate group in the UK initially refused to accept it and so it was acquired by the private collection of the Astrup Fearnley Museum. Then, in 1995, Hirst, with this piece of work, won the prestigious Turner Prize (an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50), and now Tate Modern can

only house a replica of the work.