‘Ulvegildeskogen’, Mandal 1863

Curator: We are looking at ‘Ulvegildeskogen’, Mandal. Painted in 1863, this piece comes from the brush of Amaldus Nielsen, realized en plein-air with oil paint. Curator: My first impression? The overall effect is muted, but complex. It's a study in greens and browns, offset with the vertical thrust of the white birch trunks which are interspersed among this heavy grove of rocks. There is great balance to this canvas. Curator: Considering its time, the ‘en plein-air’ aspect of this piece speaks to a shift in artistic labor. Instead of the studio, Nielsen took his easel to the site, directly confronting and documenting nature. We have to appreciate the materiality of the paint itself and how he translated observations in Ulvegildeskogen using portable pigments to engage directly with landscape, to confront issues concerning industrialization as a burgeoning concern that landscape offers aesthetic resistance. Curator: I see a convergence of romantic and realist impulses at play, that it strives for the accuracy of observation married to an appreciation for nature’s grandeur. Structurally, see how he uses the path to lead the eye into the composition? It’s all carefully calibrated to produce a feeling of peaceful immersion. How would his patron, with all the historical implication involved there, experience nature from this lens? Curator: We shouldn't ignore that he paints from life as new technologies facilitated outdoor painting, making art more accessible to a broader audience. Nielsen, capturing a landscape touched by early industrialization and the railway, frames nature against human impact, creating a dialogue about land use, production, and changing rural life during the Industrial Revolution’s acceleration. His technique underscores labor's direct impact on landscape. How much land, capital, and market are being represented here? Curator: Certainly the location plays a significant role here! A keen observer can pick up on the way that Nielson is using compositional and structural details within his brush strokes to lead our eye around to mimic our perception of it, how light bounces of particular textures such as bark, moss or the fine gauze of atmosphere itself. Curator: Examining 'Ulvegildeskogen,' it’s a vivid lesson of the dialogue between artistic creation and wider economic forces at work that offers an understanding that materiality goes beyond canvas. Curator: A dialogue well rendered in browns and greens!