Hello from the Northern Hemisphere

Day 2-3: Oslo

Had a screaming baby (and an apologetic parent) in the row next to me on flight to Oslo so didn’t get much sleep. So first day in Oslo is a bit of a blur. It was surprisingly warm (26 deg) and sunny. The next day was rainy but fortunately I had organised some indoor activities.

I joined a guided tour of the very modern Opera House (built 2008). We were taken onto the stage and shown the entire backstage area (which also serves the ballet). The singers in the group got to test the acoustics.

The shoe department was fascinating. Each ballerina has her own supply of ballet shoes and they use 150-200 pairs each year (see shelves in left picture below). We were also shown how they turn everyday sneakers into elaborate shoes (the grey shoes with upturned toes in the picture on the right started life as a pair of Vagabond sneakers)

For those with grandchildren who are obsessed with tutus, there was a nice range!

Then I visited the impressive Munch museum. World-famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch willed all of his works still in his possession  when he died in 1944, to the municipality of Oslo.  In 2008, Oslo’s city council decided to build a new museum for this incredible gift and the building opened in 2021.

The Scream is Munch’s most famous work, and one of the most recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man.The Scream exists in four versions: two pastels (1893 and 1895) and two paintings (1893 and 1910). There are also several lithographs of The Scream (1895 and later).

The 1895 pastel sold at auction on 2 May 2012 for US$119,922,500, including commission and is the second most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction.

The queues to get into the Museum were very long, and the room which housed the various versions of The Scream were absolutely packed with people ( such a contrast to when Robyn and I viewed another version of The Scream in a different Oslo museum.)

I give you three versions of The Scream…..

Interestingly, Munch was an early adopter of “the selfie”!

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about Edvard Munch!