Norwegian Wood: Extractive landscapes, art and visual culture in Denmark and Norway 1730-1860

Starting from the premise that depictions of forests are not neutral ‘representations’ but dynamic historical agents whose functions and contexts change across time and space, Norwegian Wood reevaluates the function and meaning of forest imagery through a selection of in-depth case studies. Besides revisiting celebrated landscape paintings by artists such as Fearnley and Skovgaard, Norwegian Wood seeks to recontextualise the romantic landscape tradition by connecting it to forest depictions in 18th-century Danish-Norwegian art and visual culture. This includes analyses of the visual documentation of the royal travels to Norway throughout the 18th century, the flourishing prospect tradition in the century, as exemplified by J. Rach & H.H. Eegeberg’s views of Copenhagen (1747-1750), the Norwegian prospect prints initiated by Erik Pauelsen (1788-89) and completed by C.A. Lorentzen and Georg Haas (1792-96), as well as the visual material produced by the 18th century General Forestry Commission regarding the storage and shipping facilities at Bremerholmen in Copenhagen. In doing so, Norwegian Wood will examine and critique the connection between eighteenth-century landscape depictions and nineteenth-century landscape painting, revealing how celebrated romantic landscapes of the nineteenth century possess a hitherto unexplored connection to the modern extraction of natural resources.

Norwegian Wood has three main research aims:

1. Representing Materials: Shifting the theoretical and methodological orientation in research on landscape depictions in historical Norwegian and Danish art by considering how forests have been depicted as environments and extractive landscapes. By shifting the focus from seeing representations of forests to looking for lumber, the project will examine how landscape paintings engage with questions regarding rights of ownership, access and management to nature while also considering how visual material has been employed to allow the viewer to identify the land or some of its components as a resource available to be removed, optimise and/or monetised.

2. Circulating Materials: Analysing the infrastructure and imprint of lumber extraction on the Danish and Norwegian art field. By exploring and re-visiting works by artists who either came from or were in close contact with lumber families, Norwegian Wood re-evaluates the suggested subjects of romantic forest paintings by viewing them as commissions from and subjective representations of the lumber industry. The same works will also be examined as vital indicators of the expanse of lumber extraction. This is important as lumber extraction can be less immediately visible than, for instance, mining and therefore easy to overlook. Working with the concept of ‘Reciprocal landscape’ (Hutton 2020) and employing empirical material such as maps, city prospects, and paintings, Norwegian Wood seeks to highlight the networks and impacts that lumber extraction has had on both images and imaginations of rural and urban landscapes.

3. Debating Materials: Creating new platforms to discuss the life and afterlife of the visual and material culture of Denmark-Norway and why it is important to reassess this period when exploring new, interconnected art historical narratives for Danish and Norwegian art. In this capacity, the project will organise a series of seminars and workshops devoted to its main research questions, but also expanding upon these through discourse and collaboration with an interdisciplinary group of researchers and artists.

• Mathias Danbolt (University of Copenhagen)
• Stephanie O’Rourke (St. Andrews)
• Patricia Berman (Wellesley)
• MaryClaire Pappas (Savannah School of Art and Design)