Sunday, September 4, 2016

world peace, and oslo artistic varia


Just past the Nobel Peace Center, there's a long temporary wall, behind which they're building a new building for the National Gallery - destined to show modern art, of which there's not a whole lot on show - plenty, however, in the Museum of Contemporary Art, and in the Astrup Fearnley Museum - nether of which I went to, because I was in the National Gallery and the Museum for Arts and Design all day.  For "all day," nb Sunday opening hours are 11-4, which is merciless (though the big exhibition I came to see on Japonisme in the Nordic Countries, was extended to 5.  Still.  Many museums are closed on Mondays, too - I should be doing this trip in reverse ... but then, other things that I want to see later in the week elsewhere would have been closed tomorrow ... all the same, I've slightly slipped up in my habitually meticulous planning ... 

On this wall, in any case, is a long mural hoping for World Peace.


Other visitors are perhaps less vexed by opening hours than I am, and are seeing the city in a more watery way.


There was a long line to get into the exhibition itself (less so with the section that was in the Museum of Arts and Design) - and, although you can't see them here, there were a couple of bus loads of very enthusiastic Japanese tourists.  You couldn't take photographs in the exhibition ...


but you could in the main galleries: here's just one, Harald Sohlberg's Summer Night.  I was terrifically struck by Norwegian use of summer light, when it doesn't ever fully get dark, and so you can have supper, or read, by the light of the moon in this dim light that's nonetheless more luminous than twilight.  I'm going to have to come back, not just to get into more museums, but to see this phenomenon ...


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