Norway Day 4

Our last day in Norway was great. We weren't able to make contact with our cousin due to the previously mentioned Jurassic technology problem. Oh well. Instead, mrguy took us to Kode, where we got our first exposure to Hilma af Klint. Her paintings were awesome. Then we took in the Nikolai Astrup show. What I particularly enjoyed about his paintings is that the setting was a farm called Myklebust. My family also lived at a farm of that name, but I don't know if it is the same one (there were several by that name).

Nikolai Astrup's wife, Engel Sunde, filled their house with textiles, some of which she collected and some of which she made. This interior scene is really compelling. In addition to her groovy textiles this painting shows that someone in the household, presumably her, was growing an Easter lily, fuschia, and what looks like an aloe. In Norway, in the early 1900s. I wouldn't have thought, and maybe that's silly of me.

A few more paintings, now. First, mrguy identified this one from sight as a painting by Anton Graf. He was correct. He and I are now kinda experts at spotting late 18th century Eastern German court paintings.

And this painting I loved -- paintings of dead loved ones are both weird and touching, especially when the subject is a child.

After we were done at the museum, mrguy escorted me to the University of Bergen library, where I could look for bygdebøker. Once ensconced at the library, mrguy went off to buy more records. He didn't really have a mission at the library and doesn't read Norwegian, but knew of a record store he hadn't visited already.

Back at the library: with assistance from a librarian I was able to find the section in the library that contained the bygdebøker I needed. I had a great hour and a half figuring out the organization of these books and, really, confirming and extending the family history research I had done twenty years ago, and to take it back another few generations. Yay!

I felt guilty with my pleasure, and after an hour and a half I texted mrguy and we went to a great bar, where we had a few beers. Awesome chairs, there.

And then we went back to the apartment and I spent as much time as possible after packing and before falling asleep using my Norwegian ISP address to access resources on the National Archives digitized collections online. Oh now I wish I had a Norwegian IP address every day! They have digitized newspapers, which would be amazing to read and use for research.

So ends our trip to Sweden and Norway. They are both delightful and different from each other, and I hope that we some day return.