"I was walking with some friends across a bridge at sunset, and the sky seemed filled with angry red flames. I was seized at that moment by an intense feeling of anxiety and a great, unending scream of nature flowed through me."
The words of Edvard Munch, explaining how his famous "The Scream" came to him. Today in Oslo we have visited the eponymous museum and also the National museum, and basked in the strange, expressionist master's greatest works. Here we can find hundreds of his paintings, a body of work which establishes him among the great artists Europe has produced. Ever.
Yet nearby a genius of almost equal stature has set out his store in a series of over two hundred sculptures of the human form: the famous Vigeland sculpture park. All human life is here, in all its beauty, tenderness and compassion, as well as in its less exalted states of anger and misery. Internationally he is less well known than his illustrious contemporary, but the experience of wandering around the park, especially in the balmy conditions of a Norwegian high summer, was unforgettable.
Today the weather has turned; grey skies oozing a gentle, but continuous rain have replaced the warmth and soaring cumulus clouds of yesterday. Which explains our decision to explore museums rather than pounding the city streets. My wife's iPhone app assures us of more clement conditions on the morrow, and it is rarely wrong. Woo Hoo!
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