Sam Eyde Foran Svelgfoss 1908

Theodor Severin Kittelsen conjured this uncanny landscape in paint, we don’t know exactly when, and called it *Sam Eyde Foran Svelgfoss.* Look at the cliff edges, formed with soft, hazy strokes, like the mist itself has settled on the surface of the painting. I bet Kittelsen felt a bit like that figure standing on the precipice – dwarfed by the scene, barely clinging on, both in awe and terrified. Imagine him trying to capture the roar of the falls, the immensity of nature’s power, with just these humble materials: pigment, brush, canvas. He’s not just painting a landscape; he’s painting a feeling, a mood, a confrontation with the sublime. I feel like I’m in Caspar David Friedrich’s studio looking at *Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.* And those faces in the churning water? Is he seeing something, or is it the water playing tricks? Maybe all art is about seeing things, and trusting our gut, even when it feels like a leap of faith.