Kittelsen's World of Fairy Tales

Love this one of a large brown bear
taking a nap in the blueberry shrubs.

Besides climbing down the cold and claustrophobic mines to see the cobalt lines and wandering around Blaafarveværket, I was also pleased to see Theodor Kittelsen's works on display. Norway has arranged for a couple of events to commemorate this centennial year of his passing.

Kittelsen used several mediums but I feel that his strength is in his imagination and how he works the watercolors to bring them to life. The ethereal strokes brought out the magic of Norwegian fairy tales, witches, trolls and bears. Now, Norwegian fairy tales or folk tales may have a happy ending, and have a lot to do with Askeladden, or an Ash-lad (often the youngest of three brothers), winning Princesses as wives and half the kingdom. BUT, every tale tells of bribes, lies, deceit, justified murder, random robbery, and all. So it's definitely not a book you would want to read to your children without some explanation.

Unfortunately, all the essential information I needed to know about the artworks was printed in Norwegian. ARRRGH. Forgot to ask if there was an audio guide in English. Oddly, there were so many people there that we couldn't really linger that long. There was cellphone reception and 4G out in the mountains and I googled like crazy to find out what the words meant. For the pieces that I really liked, had to go ask my companions to help me translate on-the-spot. Limited that to three questions. Too pai-seh to ask them to translate all. Couldn't take photos of the paintings at the galleries. Understandable. Snucked one anyway. Muahahaha.

Stopped by the gallery shop to buy a book of Th. Kittelsen's art curated by Gunn Marit Nisja, just published this year. Apparently it's for children of all ages. Alle barns. Hahahaha. Good for me. I'm not even quite at that literacy level, so it'll take me ages to read it. It's such a happy flip. The cover painting depicts the Norwegian fairy tale of 'White-Bear King Valemon'. Love the illustrations. Lots of stuff about 'The Black Plague' (Svartedauen) that affected Norway in 1349. Kittelsen personified Death as an old hag lurking in corners. o_O Spotted loads of postcards of trolls that I know some friends will like. Swept them off the shelves, wrote them and sent them off at the post office. (The postcards reached Singapore in an impressive three days, over a weekend. Godt gjort, Posten Norge!) 

Plenty of awesome illustrations. Loads of details to slowly pore over. Some fun ones from left to right below: 1) That's the cover which many have seen as a classic painting of Scandinavian fairy tales. 'Kvitebjørn kong Valemon'.  2) There's one of a troll who seems so old that it has trees and bushes growing out of it. 3) Another of an Ash Lad challenging the Troll in a porridge-eating contest. 4) Also one of gnomes with red beanies chipping away at two Troll heads that have turned into stone in the sun.