DryStoneGarden

The most unique garden I saw in Scandinavia is Gustav Vigeland’s Frogner Park in Oslo. It’s a sculpture park, the largest in the world by a single artist, but it’s laid out like a formal garden using sculptures instead of plants, and it’s pretty amazing. My feelings for it are a bit complicated — Vigeland seems to have been an unpleasant man and possibly a Nazi sympathizer — but it’s unique and impressive and fascinating and also somewhat unsettling. I’ve seen a lot of sculpture in gardens, but nothing quite like this.

Commentary tends to focus on the monolithic people-phallus or the nudity of the sculptures. The people-phallus is a 45 foot tall block of stone weighing several hundred tons, carved by a team of three masons working 14 years. It’s one of the most impressive single stones in the world, but it’s also somewhat off-putting. To me it’s suggestive of a lot of different things, but none of them are appealing. Powerful, but not appealing. I admire the work of the three masons who carved it, and I admire Vigeland’s ability to make expressive forms, and I also don’t want to sound like I love a weird people-phallus designed by a possible Nazi sympathizer.

Along with the phallus, there are lots of penises at eye level, lots of butt shots, and lots of sculptures showing violence against women and children. Vigeland would probably say nudity and violence are a part of humanity, and he would point out that the violent sculptures are derived from classical mythology and the foundational stories of humanity, and I don’t disagree, but I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t like spending any amount of time with him personally.

But then there are these remarkably tender statues. Sculpture is so often about a single person, rarely about the connections between them.

This one, Mother and Child in the museum, is sentimental but beautiful.

And his bronzes have a beautiful patina. There’s something about the copper content or finishing or weathering of Scandinavian bronze I find more consistently beautiful than any other bronze in the world.

The garden also has these terrific cast iron gates that make line drawings against the sky, like stained glass frameworks using the sky as the glass. I love how they cast drawings onto the pavement.

I can’t think of another time I’ve seen figures cast with shadows like this. Maybe against a wall, but not on pavement.

I guess I sound like I love the park. Maybe I do. There are so many elements I love, and even more that I find impressive, even as I find some of them distasteful. It’s one of the more remarkable places I have visited in Europe and totally unmissable for a visit to Oslo.

Another lovely Swedish trail is the Marstrand Trail. Marstrand is like Dyron, another island in the archipelago northwest of Gothenburg. And, like Dyron, it’s a charmer.

The trail quickly leaves town and goes through a narrow slot similar to the gullies on Dyron.

Then there is some coastal scenery and airy woodland.

But the best section of trail is out on the stormswept rockiness on the west side of the island, a string of little bridges weaving through the slickrock.

Very cool, very Swedish.