The Grindelwald Glacier Formafantasma, Oltre Terra NAM Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo NO Thomas Fearnley was born in Fredrikshald, today called Halden, in Norway. Opportunities in Norway at that time were too limited for an ambitious aspiring artist, so Fearnley pursued his art studies abroad. In “The Grindelwald Glacier” painting the viewer gazes up from the grassy knoll in the foreground toward the bottom of a valley filled by a glacier. The artist has made the landscape more overpowering than in the original on-site drawing and the majestic composition is based on Fearnley’s on-site observations. The mountainsides are steeper and have been accentuated through light and shadow. The contrast to the everlasting ice and snow of the desolate valley is heightened by the lush vegetation in the foreground, where sheep graze under a shepherd’s supervision. In romanticism, a pronounced contrast between warm and cold tones, as seen here, was also perceived as symbolizing the confrontation between life and death. Fearnley emphasizes the wild, inaccessible aspects of nature by letting a bird of prey glide above the glacier, even as he playfully includes a visual, English-based pun on his name by adding a tuft of fern next to his signature. Sources: 1 - The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, The Fine Art Collections, Norway Images: 1 - Thomas Fearnley, “The Grindelwald Glacier”, Nasjonal Museet (1838) #formafantasma #oltreterra #NAMoslo #nasjonalmuseet #design #research #grindelwald #glacier @nasjonalmuseet