How can a 200-year-old painting say something about today’s environmental challenges?
Trine Nordkvelle's PhD project will focus on Thomas Fearnley's "The Grindelwald Glacier" in an ecocritical perspective.
The painter Thomas Fearnley is the topic of the second research fellowship in the collaboration between the National Museum and the University of Oslo, funded by the Fredriksen Family Art Company (FFAC).
‘The aim of my PhD project is to see Fearnley’s painting of Grindelwald Glacier from an eco-critical perspective. I will use Fearnley’s work as a witness to the Little Ice Age, in dialogue with the discourse on climate challenges in the period in which we now live’, says Trine Nordkvelle.
Climate Awareness
Thomas Fearnley’s magnificent depiction of the Swiss alpine landscape is included in the National Museum’s permanent exhibition. But the subject itself, Grindelwald Glacier, barely exists today. 200 years ago the glacier was massive and stretched its arms all the way down to the village of Grindelwald. Now it has melted almost entirely.
In 1824 the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark launched the idea of ice ages and resultant changes in climate. This idea was surely known to Fearnley.
‘Fearnley as a witness of time is exciting. He painted at the very end of the Little Ice Age, just before the transition to modern times, and he was a travelling painter who spent lots of time outdoors. What do his pictures say about how people perceived nature in the 1800s? And how does he convey ‘wildness’ and the sublime? It will be exciting to delve into these questions’, says Trine Nordkvelle.
An Early Acquisition
The origin of today’s National Museum can be traced back to 1836, when Norway’s parliament allocated 3,000 spesidalers annually for the purchase of ‘all types of art’. Three years later, in 1839, The Grindelwald Glacier was bought, as work number 38 for the national collection. It was one of the first by a Norwegian artist.
‘It’s intriguing to see how a painting acquired almost 200 years ago can contribute to research and new knowledge today. One intention undergirding the National Museum’s doctoral collaboration with the Fredriksen Family Art Company is to show the relevance of our collection in the way done by this PhD project’, says Ingrid Røynesdal, director of the National Museum.
A Research Museum
The National Museum and the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo have a collaboration agreement through the FFAC for externally funded PhD fellowships. Relevant research projects shall be within fields represented at the National Museum, examples being art history, conservation, education and museum studies.
‘The PhD scholarships reflect initiatives recommended by the Ministry of Culture with regard to research in museums, and they contribute to strengthening the institutions’ research environments at the same time as further developing the contact with academia’, says Thierry Ford, head of research and development at the National Museum.
About the scholarship holder
Trine Nordkvelle (b. 1985) has a master’s degree in art history and has been working with the collection of the National Museum of Norway since 2010. Nordkvelle has catalogued the museum’s prints and drawings, with an emphasis on older art. Her fascination with Thomas Fearnley began in 2012 when she examined 834 of the artist’s drawings.
PhD collaboration:
- The National Museum has agreed a doctorate-level collaboration with the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo, involving four PhD fellows.
- The aim of the agreement is to strengthen the institutions’ research environments and to further develop scholarly contacts between these knowledge communities.
- The scholarship recipients will follow the Faculty’s PhD programme.
- The research grants are financed through the museum’s collaboration agreement with the Fredriksen Family Art Company (FFAC).
- The first scholarship officially began in January 2024. Subsequent scholarships will be announced in 2026 and 2027.
- The National Museum is solely and independently responsible for announcements relating to the PhD scholarships and the awarding of the research scholarships.
- The National Museum adheres to the principle of honouring the independence of research. It is fundamental to all the National Museum’s collaborations that the individual researcher is able to work autonomously, without interference in the choice of methods, results, or forms of dissemination.
