Art Appreciation: Nordic Art: From the Vikings to Edvard Munch

In this course, you will learn about Nordic art, from the bronze age and the Vikings to the Skagen Painters and Edvard Munch. The aim is to deepen your understanding of Nordic art, culture, as well as history. We will proceed in a chronological order and study the following themes: - Bronze age rock carvings in Alta and Tanum - Art of the Viking Age - Medieval church frescoes from Denmark and Sweden - Rosemaling – a type of folk art - Art at the rival Danish and Swedish courts - The Golden Age of Danish painting - Bertel Thorvaldsen, a Danish neo-classical sculptor in Rome - The Skagen painters: the modern break-through - Romantic landscape paintings in Norway - Romanticism and Identity in Finnish painting: Gallen-Kallela - Icelandic painting - Symbolist painting in Scandinavia – Edvard Munch

- Sami arts and craft As we study these subjects, we will understand the works of art and artists’ lives in their historical context. We will also establish comparisons with contemporary artistic developments elsewhere in Europe. Doing so, we will identify singular features of Nordic art, and characteristics shared with European art.