I’m afraid I am a dilettante: I only recently became aware of Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup (1880-1928). And the awareness was probably … I can’t quite recall, but I’m guessing … brought on by some lame, internet algorithm, crafted by bloodsucking capitalists. Well, I know what I know, and I blame society: Why I wasn’t educated in things Nicolai Astrup back when I grew up in Norway is something I don’t have to answer for — whoever made the descision to not educate me will have to stand responsible for it. I even went to the same high school as Astrup, for chrissake! Admittedly I attended almost a hundred years after Astrup was as student there, but still. Fuck those guys! … Whatever.
The good news — for me, at least — is that my poor education leaves plenty remaining for me to discover. I find that Astrup has a few things going for him which in particular draw my attention:
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Astrup and his wife Engel (1892-1966) made a home for themselves and eight children in a steep hillside facing Jølstravatnet in Western Norway. Here they erected new buildings using traditional log house construction techniques … or, to be more precise: they took down buildings in other parts of the municipality and rebuilt them around the existing buildings of their home. They also built up the landscape, in terraces, to create an extensive garden with many different types of vegetables and local plants. In addition to providing a living for him and his family, the home and the garden was Astrup’s source for motifs and viewpoints to use in his art.
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I like national romanticism, although sometimes it bores me. I like modernism, too, but sometimes modernism also bores me. Astrup’s modernist national romanticism is rejuvenating, a symbiosis which stimulates my imagination and aesthetic sensitivities.
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I’m fascinated by Astrups work with woodblock prints: handprinted by the artist and more akin to monoprints than anything else, Astrup called them “imperfect impressions” (Jay A. Clarke in Nikolai Astrup: Visions of Norway). They are complicated, obviously technically challenging, naïve, voluptuous.
Woodcut print
Revebjeller (Foxgloves). 1925. Color print from woodblock with hand coloring. 77.6 x 68 cm. Photo: Nasjonalmuseet/Dag Andre Ivarsøy
Printing block
Revebjeller (Foxgloves). 1915-1920. 69.2 x 78 cm. Photo: nikolai-astrup.no
Printing block
Revebjeller (Foxgloves). 1915-1920. 69.1 x 78 cm. Photo: nikolai-astrup.no
Printing block
Revebjeller (Foxgloves). 1915-1920. 69.4 x 78.1 cm. Photo: nikolai-astrup.noSources:
- Stevens, Mary A, Karl O. Knausgaård, Frances Carey, Jay A. Clarke, Robert Ferguson, and Kesia E. Halvorsrud. Nikolai Astrup: Visions of Norway. Williamstown: Clark Art Institute, 2021.