Soria Moria Slott 1911

Theodor Severin Kittelsen created "Soria Moria Slott," with watercolor and pencil on paper. The picture space is divided into three horizontal registers. A mass of trolls populates the dark foreground in contrast to the gold castle rising above the flat horizon line, with a cloudy blue sky at the top. Kittelsen’s precise execution with line and color creates a stark contrast between light and shadow, order and chaos. We can interpret this as the opposition between the familiar world of the trolls and the sublime promise of the castle in the background. The golden shimmer invites us into a fairytale vision that seems to promise some sort of transcendence, while the trolls are left behind in the lower depths. But Kittelsen destabilizes this reading by using his meticulous drawing technique to depict the crude, unrefined features of the trolls, which makes them seem more ‘real’ than the castle in the distance. Ultimately, "Soria Moria Slott" does not resolve this duality, as the meaning is always deferred to the other place, the promised, unreachable castle.