From Fjord to Forest is an exhibition of paintings, mostly oil sketches, that represent some of the archetypal characteristics of the Northern European landscape tradition. Focusing on the more introspective studies of nature, the selected pictures combine the themes of solitude and contemplation experienced by these landscape painters.
As our attention is increasingly drawn to environmental concerns, it is now an inescapable fact that the loss of our natural state of being has kept pace with our shrinking surroundings. Never has there been a greater need to preserve undisturbed natural habitats and for humans to re-engage with the natural world. However, this is no recent phenomenon, particularly across the European continent, where well over two centuries ago poets, thinkers, composers and painters alike sought to reinvigorate a collective emotional communion with nature.
Like an acorn falling on fertile soils, at the turn of the nineteenth century the conditions for this far-reaching Romantic movement to grow were ideal. In the unspoilt forests, windy fjords and wild waterfalls of their respective nations, landscape artists found a new world of motifs and ones through which they could access both their innermost feelings and wider cultural responses. Crossing national boundaries, the concept of experiencing nature became as important as seeing it. Landscape ceased to serve as a mere backdrop but became the principal genre of Romantic art and supplied young nations with their own identities.
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