The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm is presenting a fabulous exhibition of landscape paintings, "A Mirror of Nature. Nordic Landscape Painting 1840-1910", a vast collection of the best of Nordic landscape painting, beginning at the middle of the 19th century, till the first decade of the 20th century. It is not only a chance to discover a range of Nordic artists, but also to trace the development of the landscape in these countries artistic tradition, and also a story of how art and nature helped to build the national and cultural identity of countries such as Norway or Sweden.
The artists featured in the exhibition are the best in Nordic art, such as Edvard Munch, Wilhelm Hammershoi and Akseli Gallen-Kallela, to name but a few. The exhibition is the result of a cooperation between four major Nordic national galleries : Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Konstmuseet Ateneum, Helsinki; Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, arkitektur og design, Oslo; and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. The next destination will be the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a state that became home to many Swedish settlers and where this exhibition will surely be a great success.
Edvard Munch, Moonlight, 1895
The works are grouped into five thematical sections : Nordic Sublime, Close to Nature, In the Open Air, Evocative Landscape and Landscapes of the Mind. This thematic structure also relfects the chronological development of landscape painting in the Nordic countries. It began with the landscapes of the 1840's, when nature was represented as heroic, romantic and wild, and evolved till the dreamy, strange, introspective landscapes at the beginning of the 20th century.
For this important cultural event the organisers have also published an impressive catalogue, large-format, some 300 pages of vivid color reproductions and interesting articles, available in English and the four Nordic languages. The catalogue is the collective work of a team of Nordic specialists, and is also a history of the landscape painting in these countries, featuring not only the paintings, but also the biographies of the artists, descriptive entries on all the individual paintings, a vast bibliography.
October 2006
