Routes and Pictures: Road design and Artistic Representation of Roads in 19th Century Norway.

Stipendiat ved Institutt for kulturstudier og orientalske språk (IKOS)

This project investigates the reciprocal relationship between road design and artistic representation in 19th century Norway. It traces the development of Norwegian road practices from early riding paths to the first tourist roads, and looks at the ways in which these roads were represented in art. But it also puts the question the other way around, looking not only at the ways actual roads inspired artistic representation, but also at how artistic representation conditioned the design and planning of roads. These questions will be explored through a series of case-studies. Representations of specific roads, such as Krokkleiva at Ringerike, Vindhella and Gallene near Lærdal and Stalheimskleivene in Sogn, will be analyzed with a particular focus on how the relationship between the road and the landscape is construed. And the discourse on road building will be examined in order to see if, and in what ways, aesthetical attitudes and ideas are revealed. The project will be theoretically and methodologically founded within an art historical tradition, but will also be informed by perspectives and approaches from e.g. cultural history, and from the histories and theories of infrastructure and landscape design.

The project is a part of:
Routes, Roads and Landscapes: Aesthetic Practices en route, 1750-2015.