Nikolai Astrup: Discovering Norway’s “Second Artist” and Best Kept Secret
By Lori Ann Reinhall
As president of the Seattle-Bergen Sister City Association, I travel to Bergen as often as possible, not only for official business, but also to visit the many friends I’ve made there. Our sister city has become my second home, with familiar places always calling me back. At the top of the list are the KODE Museums, where you can find the masterpieces of my favorite artist, Nikolai Astrup. No trip to Bergen would be complete without a stop there, and I suspect others may feel the same way once they, too, discover one of Norway’s best kept secrets.
Born 17 years after Edvard Munch, Nikolai Astrup has often been referred to as Norway’s “second artist,” having never attained the same level of international fame as Munch, both in his own day up through contemporary times. In fact, Astrup was only first exhibited abroad in the U.K. in 2016, 88 years after his death.
Nonetheless, Astrup holds an important place in Norwegian art history — and his work has held up over time. In addition to being on permanent exhibit at KODE, his paintings and woodcuts are part of the National Gallery collection in Oslo, and his works have sold for up to $500,000 at auction.
Both Munch and Astrup were Neo-Romanticists. They created works of art that could be described as depictions of a subject inner reality, part of the l’art pour l’art movement, a world view in which art existed for its own sake. Astrup, who called himself a “naturalistic naïvist,” was inspired by the greats of the Romantic movement, who painted idyllic landscapes of the Norwegian countryside. In his own words, he created works of “memory and mood,” as opposed to any depiction of an outer reality.
Nikolai Johannes Astrup was born the son of a pastor in 1880 in Bremanger in Sogn og Fjordane in Western Norway, the eldest of 14 children. Early on the family moved to Jølster, an idyllic rural community on the shores of a clear blue glacial lake surrounded by majestic mountains .
Already as a child, he suffered severe bouts of asthma, and he would draw and sketch to pass the time. His father wanted him to go into the clergy and later sent him to the Cathedral School in Trondheim, but young Astrup found himself more interested in drawing and painting than the study of religion
Young Astrup showed signs of artistic talent, and with time his father gave in, and he was sent to study with two of the greatest Norwegian artists of the day, first Harriet Backer in Kristiania and then Christian Krogh in Paris.
With their depictions of life in countryside, his teachers left strong influences on his work, in terms motifs, treatment of light and color, and technique. Astrup became one of the most accomplished oil painters of his day and with time, he also became a master of woodcut relief color printing technique.
After further studies that took him to London, Paris, and Berlin, Astrup returned to Jølster in 1903. This was a profound decision, both professionaly and personally. Jølster and the surrounding country became the subject matter of his entire oeuvre, and he married a young peasant woman, Engel Sunde. The marriage was not welcomed by his father, who felt that his son had been destined into the educated classes, but the couple held together.
In the face of Astrup’s persistent health issues and economic hardships, Nikolai and Engel Astrup raised eight children, as they supported each other as partners and artists. They purchased a farmstead at Sandalstrand, where Engel became an accomplished weaver and collector of rustic antiques. She had a significant impact on her husband’s work, and he in turn, designed patterns for her prized textiles.
The Astrups embraced their way of life in countryside, and the artist’s work may be interpreted as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the urbanization was bringing to Norway. Astrup loved the old folklore and traditions of Western Norway, the rituals and pagan elements. One of his favorite motifs was the St. Hans bonfire on Midsummer Eve. In his paintings, it comes to life with its bold color and sweeping lines, which serve to capture the movement of the dance. An entire gallery room is devoted to these paintings in one of the gallery rooms at KODE in Bergen, and you cannot help to be drawn into the excitement when surrounded by them.
Farm and family activities also figure prominently in Astrup’s work, be it picking marigolds or cutting rhubarb, a simple children’s game, or a family celebration. The artist lovingly depicted the farm buildings at their home, Astruptunet.
Suffering from fragile health most of his life, Astrup was often confined to the indoors. He rendered impressive interior and still life motifs, or if his longing to the mountains and meadows outside became too great, he would sit at the window and depict his view, each time with a new mood and changing nuances.
If any idea or mood is evoked by Astrup’s art, love of nature first comes to mind. He painted the landscape of Jølster over and over through the changing seasons, from wild bursts of color in springtime and summer to the cool, austere greys and blues of the fall and winter. At times there is a personification of nature, a tree may to life in spring with its arms reaching out to embrace the light.
At times there is an unmistakable feeling of melancholia to be found in Astrup, notably in the winter scenes and night landscapes. The darkness and cold took its toll on the artist with weak his lungs, and at one point, he and Engel even considered emigrating to America. His longing manifests itself in the recurring motif of moon over the mountains and lake throughout all the seasons of the year. But happiness had to be found at home in Norway. Astrup showed his works in Scandinavia, with major exhibits of his paintings with other Western Norwegian artists at the Bergen Art Association in 1922 and 1926.
To improve his health, Nikolai and Engel Astrup traveled through Europe to Tunis and Algiers in 1922, where their sixth child was born. But his condition continued to decline until his death from tuberculosis and pneumonia in 1928. The same year, a grand memorial exhibition was held in Bergen.
Today, Galley 4 at KODE in Bergen is a permanent memorial to Astrup’s life and work. The special exhibit “Nikolai Astrup — Out of the Shadows” will run to December 2019, exploring the influences on his work, beginning with the early days of his childhood in Jølster. Next door at KODE 3, major works by his contemporary Munch are also on display. And if that is not enough, the artist’s home at a Sandalstrand, Astruptunet, about four hours north of Bergen by car, is a museum open to the public.
Dr. Mary Jo Thorsheim, owner and founder of Norway Art in Minneapolis 40 years ago recalls: “Visiting Astruptunet in 1928 in the pouring rain, and even with the museum closed except for a private walking tour that the watchman gave us, was an exciting and moving experience. Unforgettable!”
Over the years, Thorsheim has sold numerous Astrup, paintings, woodcuts, lithographs, and prints. First inspired by his painting Summer Wind and Playing Children (1913), she continues to collect his work. You can view and order from her collection of Norwegian art at www.norwayartonline.com.
To learn more about the KODE Museums in Bergen and the work of Nikolai Astrup, visit www.kodebergen.no/en. More information about the artist and the Astrup Research Centre is available at www.nikolai-astrup.no/en, and there is even a page devoted to Astrup on Facebook at www.facebook.com/nikolaiastrup.
