On the road again!: Oslo National Museum of Art, September 15

September 15 National Museum (Art)

View from the rooftop terrace at "our" apartment

Today we had a day in our own neighborhood. Before we went out, we went up to the 13th floor and then walked up to the rooftop deck which has amazing views all around. And, before heading out, we walked across the little canal so we could take photos of our apartment from over there. What an amazing location we picked and it's also a great apartment.

View from "our" apartment

We walked to the National Museum where we spent a good part of the day. It is an excellent collection with a sampling of major international artists, but the main focus is on Norwegian art which was excellent.

Of course, there was a great collection of Edvard Munch some we had, obviously, never seen, although the Clark Museum had an excellent Munch show that we saw last year.

On gallery, devoted entirely to Munch was a collection of paintings that Munch referred to as "The Frieze of Life" which depicted life with its ups and downs. Part of the series is the original "Scream." The room is darkened to protect it as it is only on cardboard.

The original "Scream"

We also saw work from the Romantic painter, Johan Christian Dahl whose work we also saw at the Kvitnes Hotel in Bergen. The museum has huge pastoral scenes of the fjord region which were incredibly detailed down the the blades of grass.

"Let Him Have a Future"

J.C. Dahl

There were also some Rodin sculptures. We saw a self portrait of Vincent Van Gogh which we had also never seen. Unsigned, it took a while to verify as his, but it is now certain. It was painted just a year before his death. It was noted that Munch liked the Van Gogh.

After hours looking at the permanent exhibit, we went to the top floor to see an exhibition devoted to Mark Rothko. Even though we've seen a Rothko exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, this was a chronological representation of his work, all on paper. Most were smaller works than we've seen before. And, you could see the evolution he underwent and the beginnings of his horizontal works. At the end of the exhibit, it was mostly the horizontal work which we associate with him.

A very early Rothko

Then we walked quite a way in the quest for a restaurant and ended up at The Rice Bowl, a Thai restaurant where we both had ginger dishes, one with salmon and one with chicken.

As the Akershus Fortress was near our walk home, we walked around it. Like the castle in Bergen, it is still a military complex. And, like in Bergen, it has a Resistance Museum, but we skipped it as we had gone to the one in Bergen. We did not go into the castle itself which was first built in 1299 and fortified and enlarged by the Danes in 1649.

Many of the Resistance fighters were executed at the fortress, as was the traitor Quisling.