Observing Life: Preliminary Observations Regarding Gustav Vigeland

In 2006, on a trip to Scandanavia with my mother, then 85, we briefly visited the Frognersparken, Oslo, Norway, home to the sculpture (nearly all of his life's work) of Gustav Vigeland.  Our eloquent guide was Norwegian and his description of the theme of these monolithic granite and bronze works caused me to view them with an open eye and heart.  My emotional reaction was quite strong and though I had taken many digital photos in the park at that time and my wife had made a video record which I later combined into a video with the guide's narration, I had the continuing fantasy that I would someday return, unrestricted by time, and view the many score of works closely and in the benefit of better light.  My first visit was during a cold grey rain which discolored and stripped the sculptures and limited the photography and viewing.  We were part of a tour group, on a schedule, and the segment of the day devoted to the park limited to about 45 minutes.  

Yesterday, June 10, 2014, I returned to the park, with a much better camera, a day and a half to visit the park and a bed at a B&B a short walk from the entrance.  With yesterday's late afternoon and evening photography and this morning's sundrise (3:59 am) to 8 am photography I have accumulated over 500 images.  About 80% are groups of three bracketed exposures which will be combined into single frame High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos and the rest are single photos making the total about 200+ unique images.  I also applied 8 years of photographic study and experience in "seeing."  I hope I have progressed since those earlier years.

More importantly though I believe the decade from age 62-70 has brought me more experience with life and the joy and challnge of becoming a grandfather and also older.

The grandfather's eye is most important to "seeing" Vigeland's work, because my view is that the
Sculptor used his art to convey his observations about life, relationships, love, jealousy, anger, sympathy, joy and the full range of human experience.  Vigeland does not use words but rather a remarkable language created out of mute granite and bronze to sing life's song as eloquently as Brahms or Whitman or Rembrandt.   With the luxury of several hours viewing through my camera's view finder, seeking the light and angle and the patience to try to translate three dimensional art into photography which I hope will convey enough of what Vigeland is, I believe, communicating, that you too will be motivated to come to Oslo and spend time in this unique place.  For, as Vigeland himself was stated to have said, "if you want to see my work, you must come to Oslo."   Indeed, virtually his life's work is in this one place - no where else.   Sphere: Related Content