Word gets around. Once you’re fingered as a public sculpture fanatic, even casual acquaintances feel obligated to bring you up to speed on statues around the world.
And so it was on a Spring day that I got a frantic call from a woman I’d met once who had just come home from Scandinavia. She invited me over to see a video she’d gotten at this great sculpture park in Norway.
The Park itself didn’t impress me much. It was sort of a Danish modern, concrete and turf kind of layout. Sterile ground for the main attraction.
Now, I’ve never really thought of Norwegians as great sculptors, but then again what do I know? Once I got a gander at the twisting pieces of Vigeland Park (outside Oslo) I changed my mind. There are nearly 600 nudes and a couple of clothed figures, in all stages of development (from a fetus on its head to an old couple in a tender embrace) arranged over the acreage.
By the time you’ve examined the pieces, you’ve got a pretty firm handle on mankind from birth to death. The sort of scope that painters and bas relief artists usually deal with. This guy was ambitious.
He was Gustav Vigeland, the son of a woodcarver who, legend has it, turned to drink. Dad set up his son with a good education, though, and just after he died, young Gustav found a job with a furniture firm in the city. Unfortunately, they folded on Christmas Eve and he was on his own.
He once said he was a sculptor before he was born and had no choice in the matter. He spent his life exploring humans in all their pursuits and dreams and the Norwegian government, an enlightened sort of a mob, knew when they had a genuine article. They gave him a house and a studio in exchange for his output.
They were pretty sure that the granite figures would last because the last thing Vigeland did to any of them was to whack them a few times with a sledge hammer to make sure they could take the wear and tear of cold Scandinavian winters. Yikes!
This is where Vigeland Sculpture Park comes in and where his life’s work stands today. ( Photo from fortunecity.com website)
The most popular piece in the place is that of a squalling brat in the midst of a temper tantrum. Angry Baby stamps his foot and squeezes his face in fury and frustration. Like the other pieces, his face is detailed, but his body is just surface, no details, no wrinkles or folds. Just smooth body. That’s not too disturbing in an infant, but when you examine the pieces of octogenarians in love, you’d think there would be some sign of the wear and tear of life. The most prominent piece, though, is a 46 ft high column made of a single block of stone with figures twisting around it in various stages of movement. It’s a high relief and tourists spend a lot of time snapping pix of it gurgling kudos. Vigeland himself said he found it boring.
10:18:18 PM 
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