1941, Alf Rolfsen, The trade routes / ...from the drifting nets to the forests of the east (Næringsveiene / ...fra de drivende garn til skogene i øst) -- Oslo City Hall

From the Oslo Municipality Art Collection website (www.kunstsamlingen.no):

In the 265 square meter fresco, Norwegian working life is presented through a montage of fragments of images that seem cut out and assembled together. On the left, Nansen refers to the nation's search outward, while the four and a half meter high portrait of Bjørnson expresses spiritual expansion inward. The props include herring rods, factory cranes and the crops of the field. Particularly characteristic is the work tool, the stump grinder, which is also reproduced in other decorations of the town hall – a symbol of national innovation.

Together with Axel Revold, Per Krohg and partly Henrik Sørensen, Rolfsen was referred to as the "fresco brothers" in the interwar period. This was due more to their technique than to their technique, as they worked with a similar form of representation and expressed common ideals in their large decorations. There they sought to reach people with easily understandable representations, and inspired by Baroque murals, Fauvism and partly Cubism, they wanted to give their pictures monumentality.

The fresco visualizes, in its deepest sense, nation-building: The anonymous and well-functioning workers of a harmonious society find their place and take care of their own business, while the ideals are embodied by the great sons of the country. This expresses a bourgeois-liberal view that is associated with the attitudes of the so-called Lysaker Circle in the interwar period. Among the representatives of this circle were Nansen, several visual artists and writers, as well as scientists and businessmen. The architects of the town hall were included, and connections were made to the somewhat younger fresco brothers.

Rolfsen executed the fresco under difficult conditions in a building that was still unfinished. It was not made easier by the fact that the jury of the decoration competition required Rolfsen to share the hall's walls with Henrik Sørensen, which required major reworking of Rolfsen's winning design.

Taken on: July 5, 2025

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Photo by R.M. Lenox

Oslo City Hall

Oslo radhus

Norway

Norwegian

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fresco

freske « less

Sets appears in: • All Paintings (chronological order) • 1900-1949 more » • Norwegian painters • Oslo City Hall • Date taken « less

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