Norwegian Art: Dahl, Astrup, and Munch

During my Fulbright in Norway a couple of years ago, I have had the opportunity to visit countless museums in Norway, Poland, France, and Austria. Today, I want to take a moment and share with you some of my favorite pieces from Bergen, Norway. The KODE museums have a large collection of artworks from various ages, but the ones that stuck out to me are from the National Romantic, early-Modernist, and Modernist periods. Specifically, I was drawn to the works of Johan Christan Dahl (1788–1857), Nikolai Astrup (1880–1920) , and Edvard Munch (1863–1944). Before I arrived in Norway, the only one I had heard of, of course, was Munch. As Ian Dejardin notes in his lecture about Astrup, the 19th century in Norwegian art is a golden age, leading up to Munch. Dahl and Astrup are each firmly part of this.

Born in Bergen during Danish rule, Dahl painted landscapes in Norway, Denmark, and Italy, amongst other places. What drew me to Dahl’s work, initially, was his paintings of Bergen and the surrounding area. Specifically, I felt drawn to his pieces that show Bergen from a distance, looking from the harbor and through the surrounding mountains from the fields on the outskirts of the city, spaces that don’t differ much from the city center. Another one of my favorite pieces by Dahl has to be “From Bergen Harbor.” Here, we see Bergen from the harbor, viewing the Bryggen on the left with…