Albertine to See the Police Surgeon

Ellen Lerberg:
Christian Krohg was very engaged in social issues, and he was interested in people’s destinies. In particular, in cases where groups of people were being unfairly disadvantaged, he believed that he could make a difference through his writing and painting.

Narrator:
You are listening to National Museum curator Ellen Lerberg, who is talking about Christian Krohg. As a journalist, author, artist and lawyer, Krohg was well equipped to participate in social debates. In the 1880s, there was one particular cause that absorbed his attention: the injustices suffered by Kristiania’s prostitutes.

Ellen Lerberg:
The thinking at the time was that young men needed to find outlets for their sexual urges; and that men had sexual urges, but women didn’t. And so that young men could find outlets for their sexual urges, they needed to visit prostitutes. They couldn’t have sex with women who were their social equals, because these women were expected to remain virgins until marriage. And the way this awkward problem was solved was through a tacit acceptance of prostitution.

Narrator:
At the same time as Christian Krohg was working on his large paintings of life among the city’s prostitute community, he was writing his novel Albertine. In this book, he tells the story of a young woman who suffers the unfortunate fate of falling in love with a policeman.

Ellen Lerberg:
He gets her drunk and rapes her, and then puts her on Kristiania’s prostitute register, even though she isn’t actually a prostitute at all. But in the end she gives up. She cuts her hair into a fringe like the other prostitutes, and resigns herself to their lifestyle. Prostitution was illegal, but Christian Krohg explains how the police operated a policy of tacit acceptance, and how this involved prostitutes being forced to undergo regular examinations by the police surgeon, in order to check for venereal diseases. And so Krohg drew attention to a situation that he thought was really outrageous, and he highlighted its hypocrisy. And he got into trouble for doing so.

Narrator:
The book was censored and confiscated, and Krohg was prosecuted. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which issued Krohg with a fine. But Krohg insisted on his right to freedom of expression. He had his paintings, and now he would reap the rewards of his work.

Ellen Lerberg:
He put his big painting Albertine to see the police surgeon on public display. And people queued up to see the painting, and to find out about the story of Albertine. Krohg’s painting and writing activities finally resulted in changes to the laws on prostitution. People marched in torchlit processions to Prime Minister Sverdrup’s residence. Now the same rules had to apply to everyone. It’s pretty cool that visual art can achieve such a result.