I have lately seen many letting out their ideas on what really is art. I, too, have the feeling I should let out a bit of my thoughts on it. Unlike the other posts I have seen, though, I am not going to show what I consider to be a chimpanzee that got paint on its hands being called art. Here I show a piece of what I really feel like art and really touches my heart.
I will then present one of my favorite artists of all time: Theodor Severin Kittelsen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Kittelsen
You will find that Kittelsen was deeply in love with nature and the Norwegian mythology. Some of his pictures do not even have a deeper meaning, they are just beautiful scenes he felt deserved being portrayed. He has several works on trolls. Theodor was also engaged in showing history in his paintings. One of the most shocking of his works (to me) was “The Black Death” which consists of an old woman that brings death, based on the plague. It is so horrifying to me I can barely look at it. He was, is and forever will be amazing. Enjoy:
Theodor Kittelsen
Self-portrait.
The Neck as a White Brook Horse
The nokken (Neck) is a shape-shifting creature that assumed the form of a white brook horse.
Nokken (Neck or Nix)
The Nokken (shape-shifting creature) in the lake.
Woodpecker
A Bear Hunt Gone Wrong
Many artists are obsessed with one specific animal. I think Theodor’s were bears.
Waldtroll
I often see him mixing creatures bond to nature with nature itself. For some reason I love it.
Lysalver Fanger Skyggetussen
I couldn’t find a good translation for the title, but I found something like “Light beings capture shadow troll” -boldly self-describing.
White Bear King Valemon
This one gets to me because of the purity it inspires. It’s like they’re light itself. Plus, the fairytale of Valemon is a very cherished one to me. Worth reading.
These pictures should be more than enough to express why I love his works and why I feel like this should be saved for posterity and not those ridiculous laughingstocks being called “art”. It is outrageous and insulting to every single living person who knows how to hold a pencil, has eyes or a brain that some people call their shit art. Note that when I say shit, I don’t intend to use as an expression. There are people who literally call their excrement art. I won’t show you that. No one deserves seeing that and that doesn’t deserve to be seen by anyone. Instead, I’ll show beauty in order to see beauty.
“For the most beautiful things in the world come in a piece of paper: music. Anyone who thinks of another answer isn’t worth being someone.”
septentrionali dereliquit 
Kittelsen was a brilliant artist. He gave life to the Nordic folklore in a way no-one else could. It’s a thing hard to accept for me that art albums with his work are not available anywhere, at least to my knowledge.
He wasn’t a famous artist. He was brilliant, but the critics (as always) weren’t very flattering. He died poor and only gained fame after his death. I’ve read he is much appreciated by Norwegians, but to find his art anywhere out of Norway is really hard. Some of his works are hard to find even on the internet.
That’s true. I’ve managed to find out that the small museum built in his hoe in Norway used to sell reproductions of his paintings a while back, but they sold out and it looks like that’s it. Well, happy handful of owners, I guess. It kind of tells you an awful lot about people when you know that they actually prefer the unsettling, misanthropic painting of a madman (Edvard Munch, album art and reproductions available anywhere) to this beautiful art, touching on what’s most precious about the culture and wild nature of the northern regions of Europe.
Not only the nature and mythology, he also did a great work on Black Death. I would have posted the works here if I wasn’t so scared by them myself.
That is what I find great about him: He made you feel it. Whatever he portrayed, you can feel it. This is one of the qualities of European artists.
It’s a shame that it took me so long to learn about him but learned about horrible people such as Modigliani as young as 10…
Yes, you’re quite right. To me the difference is that while Munch portrayed everyday situations as if filled with anxiety, fear and misanthropy, Kittelsen portrayed the not-everyday Black Death as something fearful – which I guess is much more natural. He was a portrait painter too, if my memory is right – exquisite, I hear, but couldn’t find a single one example on-line, I’m afraid.
Kittelsen has always been my favorite artist. His skills of truly imbuing his art with a sense of ethereal beauty and nostalgia were simply astonishing. He had a peculiar talent that made the viewer able to feel exactly what he meant for them to feel; the sheer awe of nature. A true European quality I believe.
Yes, our works are always focused on demonstrating reality with details. Of course, we can show a biased view of reality, but we do not spray paint pointlessly around the screen and call it “modern”… It is sad, specially for those who can actually draw something, to see that happening. All that effort is meaningless faced with today’s art…