From the October 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
I am in Norway, for various reasons. There’s a shipping route called Hurtigruten (‘the fast route’) which transports passengers and freight along the Norwegian coast from Bergen to the town of Kirkenes and back again. The journey is about 2,500 nautical miles, takes 12 days, crosses the Arctic Circle and includes a sometimes tempestuous foray into the Barents Sea. The coast is stunningly beautiful in all seasons – the Nordland summer’s endless day, the Nordland winter’s endless night. The Northern Lights are magnificent if existentially troubling. Successive ports slip away in the bleary hours of dawn. You can book a cabin and max out on fish suppers, or you can stay on board for just a few days, sleep in the cafe and drink aquavit. I’ve been coming to this coast since I was 14 years old and all these options have their virtues. I left Bergen in the teeming rain but the clouds lifted as we reached Geiranger Fjord – mountains lush with feathery pines, silvery waters glistening in the pale sunshine. I’m heading for the great Viking city of Trondheim, famous for Nidarosdomen, the world’s northernmost medieval cathedral. Trondheim is still a few hundred miles beneath the Arctic Circle. The light is timorous.
Trondheim has a rich artistic heritage, and one of Norway’s most famous and influential living artists, Håkon Bleken, was born here in 1929. During the German occupation of Trondheim, the city was placed under martial law and citizens were executed for so-called sabotage. Bleken’s father was sent to a concentration camp at Lofjorden. Perhaps inevitably, Bleken’s work contends with themes of human suffering, the horrors of war, the absurdity and cruelty of tyrannical regimes. He made his name in 1971 with his charcoal series Fragments of a Dictatorship. He is best known for paintings and collages, but has also created stained-glass windows, woodcuts, lithographs and illustrations for books by authors such as Ibsen, Hamsun and Blixen. Bleken’s artistic influences include Picasso, Kurt Schwitters and the Swedish-born textile artist Hannah Ryggen, who lived in Trondheim. He also takes inspiration from literary works, with recent pieces including Vi elendige (‘The Miserables’ – in tribute to Victor Hugo’s novel), Hyllest til Paul Celan (‘Tribute to Paul Celan’) and a series of 32 pastels, Meditasjoner over Dantes Inferno (‘Meditations on Dante’s Inferno’).
Jesus takes up his Cross (1975), from the series Korsvei by Håkon Bleken. Photo: Nidaros domkirkes sokn; © Håkon Bleken
The Trondheim Kunstmuseum holds many works by Bleken, but I’m heading to Nidarosdomen to see a display of his Korsvei series (‘The Stations of the Cross’) – first shown in 1976. It’s a brisk, windswept walk from Trondheim harbour to the cathedral, through streets of handsome wooden houses, everything painted in bright oranges, reds and yellows. Nidarosdomen is an extraordinary and improbable place – like finding Notre-Dame at the end of a quiet fjord. It was under construction from 1070–c. 1300 and became a major centre of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages. By the 19th century the building was showing the deleterious effects of time and several fires. Since then, renovations have been extensive, most notably of the western facade, which is adorned with 76 enormous sculptures of saints and biblical figures. There are brilliant, playful touches. The figure of Saint Michael on top of the north-west tower bears an uncanny resemblance to Bob Dylan – a deliberate homage by the sculptor Kristofer Leirdal, rather than a travel-weary hallucination. In the vast, echoing interior of Nidarosdomen, sunlight falls through a rose window, dappling the gothic–Romanesque columns. Vast arches recede almost infinitely, like ecclesiastical architecture designed by M.C. Escher.
Amidst such dreamlike grandeur, you could easily miss the Korsvei series, which consists of 15 works, each 50 by 40cm, tucked away beneath an impressive baroque organ – the smaller of two organs in the cathedral but still massive. The Stations include Jesus being condemned by Pilate, being made to bear the cross, falling for the first, second and third times and, later, dying on the cross, being taken down and being buried.
Jesus is Nailed to the Cross (1975), from the series Korsvei by Håkon Bleken. Photo: Nidaros domkirkes sokn; © Håkon Bleken
The interior of Nidarosdomen is dimly lit, and initially all I can discern of Bleken’s Stations are apparently devotional forms depicting Jesus and the cross, set against patterned backgrounds. The colours are sombre – deep greens and blues. I wonder briefly why an artist who is not known to be religious (and is inspired by Dadaism) would create a series of Christian devotional images. (These kinds of ‘why’ questions often have no good answer, except, perhaps, ‘none of your business’.) However – as with the Archangel with the face of Bob Dylan – all is not as it seems. Bleken’s Stations are works of paint and collage. The canvases are coated with layers of newspaper cuttings and photographs representing famines, terrorism, wars, genocides and catastrophes. The images of Christ’s journey are set against and interrupted by these fractured, dissonant backgrounds. The works must be carefully meditated upon before their meaning is revealed, and in this way, they offer an alternative secular or agnostic ritual. They hint at theological questions about how such monstrous suffering can be compatible with any divine plan and whether our chaotic world has perhaps exceeded the remit of all deities, benevolent or otherwise. They are also powerfully evocative of the history of Trondheim and the violent invasion of the city that took place in Bleken’s own lifetime.
Later, I return to the ship as the admonitory horn blasts. That evening, I stand on deck as the sun slides towards the horizon, staining the waters pink. Tomorrow, I’ll be crossing the Arctic Circle and heading towards the serried peaks of the Lofoten Islands, which appear from a distance as a granite wall rising from Vestfjorden. Then I’ll reach my favourite Arctic city – Tromsø, where a modern cathedral resembles slabs of gleaming ice and a bust of Roald Amundsen lingers outside the Polar Museum. The towns change after Tromsø. At the end of the Second World War, the retreating Germans torched and ravaged Finnmark and northern Troms. The Norwegians have now embarked on rearmament in the far north, expanding the Finnmark Brigade near Russia’s militarised Kola Peninsula. The past, present and uncertain future hover in the fading dusk.
One last thing about Bleken’s work at Nidarosdomen. There are usually 14 Stations of the Cross but Bleken has added a 15th to his series: Oppstandelsen or ‘The Resurrection’. Once more, the devotional elements are interrupted by dark, tumultuous photographs. Yet this time the interruptions are interrupted in turn by a single arresting image: a fragile, slender tree, decked in pink and white blossoms. It shatters everything – looming from the darkness and connecting with a thin band of tranquil blue sky at the top of the canvas. Despair interrupts hope, and yet, just occasionally, hope may interrupt despair. Onwards – to the north.
The Resurrection (1975), from the series Korsvei by Håkon Bleken. Photo: Nidaros domkirkes sokn; © Håkon Bleken
From the October 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.