Nasjonal Museet, Oslo

While in Oslo, we spent half a day in the National Museum of Norway. It houses a very famous painting by a norwegian.

Edvard Munch’s The Scream – 1893 (cropped)

A selection of Munch’s work can be viewed on the museum’s site.

Edvard Munch’s The Girls on the Bridge – 1901

Rodin

There were also a couple of Degas’s bronze ballet dancers.

We know very little about Norway’s art. Below are a few that we liked.

The collection of old masters and modern art at the National Museum is one of the largest collections in Scandinavia. It consists of 4,500 paintings and 900 sculptures from antiquity until approximately 1945.

Can’t ignore these Norwegian flags.

Ethnic country girls – in their costumes.

Cold climate city – we liked these paintings that depict uniquely Scandinavian life.

Catching salmon in the baskets. This painting is massive and it was immersive standing in front of it. ; )

Moody man – perhaps it is the lack of sunlight for 6 months – many of the Scandinavian paintings are sombre.

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Nasjonalmuseet’s collection contains around 400 000 art, architecture and design objects. Almost 40 000 objects are available online here.

Happy viewing.

Gingerbread architecture, Oslo

In Oslo, with our ticket purchased for the National Museum in Oslo, we could use them to enter the National Museum of Architecture as well.

This establishment was opened in 2008. The main building was completed in 1830 as a division office for Norges Bank. It was adapted and extended by Sverre Fehn (1924–2009), who was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1997.

A gingerbread architecture competition is held annually by the National Museum (Nasjonal Museet), Norway.

Oil rig

All the entries can be seen here at the museum’s website.

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Some of the results and the winners were on display.

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The gingerbread exhibits was retrievable by the contestants on January 6 and any Houses not retrieved will be eaten.

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After the audience award ceremony on January 7, a gingerbread House smash-and-eat was held to conclude the competition.

 

Vigeland museet, Oslo – part 2

This is part 2 of our post on Gustav Vigeland, one of the most famous sculptor of Norway. The following are a selection of his works on display at the Vigeland museum (Vigeland museet) in Oslo. For more info about the museum, click here to see part 1.

In this post, we focus on the works. The photos below are organized according to the order they appear in the museum floorplan and the order probably corresponds to the periods when they were made.

There were only a few of these flat panels but they are so much details in each.

A different style altogether.

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From a gallery of busts.

Using tree-like structure as a frame …

Smaller square panels appearing later in the exhibition.

 Nightmarish images

The dragon was used consistently to represent sin.

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These massive columns can be seen in his sculpture park (Vigelandsparken), including smaller versions of the famous Monolith (Monolitten), with its 121 figures struggling to reach the top of the sculpture.

The park was too icy so we did not go.

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A partially disassembled mould showing the making of a sculpture – the angry child statue is a favorite in the park, and is being reproduced on various souvenirs.

Go see them yourself. All these pieces are life-size or larger than life. They cannot be fully appreciated in photos.