A small group of people set out from their homeland. Maybe it’s too cramped for them there, too little space and soil. Maybe they dream of finding a richer country somewhere else. Humans have done this throughout the ages. But around the year one thousand, Leiv Eiriksson embarked on such a journey, which took him to the fertile east coast of North America. Thus he became the first known European to set foot on American soil. The most famous painting of this journey was painted by Christian Krohg in 1893. Until recently, it was the first picture you saw when you entered the old National Gallery. But in the new National Museum, the picture has been put away. When the museum’s department director Stina Högkvist was asked by Aftenposten about the reason, she replied that the picture was colonialist. The outcry immediately echoed through social media. Many were left with the feeling that they should be shielded from a classic painting from Norwegian art history because it was not sufficiently politically correct. It only took a few hours for Högkvist to lay down, and said that it was not the case that the picture was not shown because it was “colonialist”. However, Högkvist’s spontaneous response to Aftenposten suggests that it is her own opinion about the painting. In that case, it is a rather ahistorical attitude. The National Museum in Oslo. Photo: Annika Byrde / NTB – Can’t be compared to colonial master There are two historical eras that are important to understanding “Leiv Eiriksson discovers America”. One is Eirikson’s own time, a lively and expansive period for Norway and the Nordic countries. Norwegians traveled across great seas, they traded, discovered and conquered. No one can know exactly what Leiv Eiriksson was thinking, or what he thought he would find. He cannot easily be compared to a colonial master. The second historical era is the time when the picture was painted, at the very end of the 19th century. For a hundred years, persistent Norwegian nation-building had been carried out, where literature and the visual arts were important pillars. Norway was no longer under Denmark, but lived in a restless and uncomfortable coexistence with Sweden. It was about finding what was our own, which was not just handed to us by our stronger neighbours. The search for the national is an act of rebellion, a basis for independence, a bulwark against being swallowed up by other, heavier and more continental cultures. The picture was also painted at a time when crowds of poor Norwegians had traveled across the ocean to the promising America. In the new country, many of them were vulnerable, with few resources and little network. Krogh’s painting can also be a comment on the great exodus. The journey west, which in reality for many was associated with toil and hardship, became somewhat heroic. It was something that connected them with their harsh ancestors, the Vikings. But “Leiv Eiriksson discovers America” does not only have a national context. We are also in an age where explorers and colonists are seen as bold and heroic men, taking great risks to bring civilization to dark corners of the world. Christian Krogh’s painting was sent to the World Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, as part of the commemoration of four hundred years since Christopher Columbus set foot on American soil. In this way, Krogh’s Leiv Eiriksson becomes a direct parallel to the Italian explorer. It is perfectly permissible to point out and problematise this parallel. We who live now should not be passive recipients of the ideals of the past. We will discuss what has been handed down to us and develop an independent relationship with it. But by hiding away an image like “Leiv Eiriksson discovers America”, the National Museum does the opposite. We can’t talk about what we can’t see. What exactly is a “canon”? For the sake of simplicity, we can say that a “canon” is a list of the works of art in a country’s cultural history that are considered to be the most significant. We expect to find them in museums and in school books. But then it’s more complicated than that. Because on the one hand, canon is never made once and for all. When we look back in 2023, we will discover that those who assembled canon before us had their blind spots. Perhaps there were important paintings, novels and pieces of music they overlooked, because they were created by and for groups they did not find interesting. Many female and queer artists, and artists from various minorities, have been discovered and given greater importance after their lifetime. Perhaps the gatekeepers of earlier times have paid tribute to works that proved to have poor durability beyond their own contemporaries. We ourselves are guaranteed to do the same now in 2023. Because, on the other hand, canon can never be created from scratch. We cannot be so arrogant on behalf of the present that we look at a work that has had great importance and influence and say that we no longer need it, that it is not interesting to experience. It becomes a kind of falsification of history. Kanon is supposed to make us look back to other times, where people did not think and feel as we do now. It should show us what has been important in our history, without our own tastes and norms getting in the way. When Högkvist says of her workplace that “here we do not work with the concept of canon”, it is tempting to point out that it is perhaps not her who decides. When you have the power to choose what becomes part of the National Museum’s exhibition and what does not, you have a cannon in your hands, whether you like it or not. If you don’t understand the nation-building that took place in the 19th century, you don’t understand Norwegian history. It can be understood in many ways, it can be praised and criticized. But it is difficult to understand why one of the most famous paintings from there should belong in a basement.
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Evidence of a historyless attitude – Speech
