Det var nord i droebak 

Editor: This drawing, "Det var nord i droebak," which translates to "It Was North in Droebak," by Theodor Severin Kittelsen, rendered in pen and ink, strikes me as profoundly melancholic. What sociopolitical context shapes how we might read this anonymous figure's lonely walk? Curator: An excellent question! Kittelsen was deeply engaged with Norwegian folklore and national identity. Given the period and Kittelsen’s interests, the figure’s dejected posture may be interpreted through the lens of broader anxieties about modernization, urbanization and the loss of traditional ways of life. How does the starkness of the ink drawing itself contribute to that reading? Editor: I guess the monochromatic palette enhances the feeling of bleakness, almost as if colour has been drained along with the old ways of life. But isn't that romanticizing the past a little? Curator: Precisely. Kittelsen and other artists contributed to a constructed vision of Norwegian identity. Nostalgia is often intertwined with power, deciding whose past gets represented, and to what end. The choice of folklore elevated folk traditions. Do you find any aspect of the figure challenging such a nationalistic reading? Editor: Maybe its plain ordinariness? It could be anybody and their story. Curator: A key element of folklore. He is deliberately anonymous to invoke universal feelings of struggle and alienation within a particular landscape and socio-political reality. Editor: I hadn't thought about the universality within specificity. This helps reframe folklore in a very different, more nuanced light for me. Curator: It all boils down to who and what we chose to value as a society. The choices become more conscious with understanding.