9/30/14

Excursion - Pacific/Atlantic/Polar Explorers...

This post was supposed to come after the Viking ships, but it got out of order!

I was fascinated by Thor Heyerdahl in my adolesent years but had never really thought what might have happened to his raft...well, it's in Oslo; along with his other boat, the Ra II.

From the internet:
Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer...Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands...He believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.  Kon-Tiki had a six-man crew...The main body of the float was composed of nine balsa tree trunks up to 45 ft long, 2 ft in diameter, lashed together with 1¼ inch hemp ropes. Cross-pieces of balsa logs 18 ft long and 1 ft in diameter were lashed across the logs at 3 ft intervals to give lateral support. Pine splashboards clad the bow, and lengths of pine 1 inch thick and 2 ft wide were wedged between the balsa logs and used as centreboards.  The main mast was made of lengths of mangrove wood lashed together to form an A-frame 29 ft high. Behind the main-mast was a cabin of plaited bamboo 14 ft long and 8 ft wide was built about 4–5 ft high, and roofed with banana leaf thatch. At the stern was a 19 ft long steering oar of mangrove wood, with a blade of fir. The main sail was 15 by 18 ft on a yard of bamboo stems lashed together...The raft was partially decked in split bamboo. The main spars were a laminate of wood and reeds and Heyerdahl tested more than twenty different composites before settling on one that proved an effective compromise between bulk and torsional rigidity. No metal was used in the construction.

For more than that, read his book - it's fascinating...

It's an unassuming building and not especially crowded when we got there...

 
and I was delighted with a little Easter Island in Norway!
looks kind of small for six men and a parrot!
 Actually, when you first come into the building you see the Ra II:

again, from the Internet:  In 1969 and 1970, Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco in Africa. Based on drawings and models from ancient Egypt, the first boat, named Ra (after the Egyptian Sun god), was constructed by boat builders from Lake Chad using papyrus reed obtained from Lake Tana in Ethiopia and launched into the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Morocco. The Ra crew included Thor Heyerdahl (Norway), Norman Baker (USA), Carlo Mauri (Italy), Yuri Senkevich (USSR), Santiago Genoves (Mexico), Georges Sourial (Egypt) and Abdullah Djibrine (Chad). Only Heyerdahl and Baker had sailing and navigation experiences. After a number of weeks, Ra took on water after its crew made modifications to the vessel that caused it to sag and break apart after sailing more than 4000 miles. The crew was forced to abandon Ra some hundred miles before Caribbean islands and was saved by a yacht.  The following year, 1970, another similar vessel, Ra II, was built of totora by Demetrio, Juan and Jose Limachi from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and likewise set sail across the Atlantic from Morocco, this time with great success. The crew was mostly the same; only Djibrine had been replaced by Kei Ohara from Japan and Madani Ait Ouhanni from Morocco. The boat reached Barbados, thus demonstrating that mariners could have dealt with trans-Atlantic voyages by sailing with the Canary Current.

Both vessels were impressive.  I also enjoyed studying some of the other items they included in the exhibit...

carving of an Egyptian reed boat


a fiber representation from Peru of another woven boat



a South American basket
a Tcherov sculpture of the crew members who sailed with both Ra and Ra II and with the Tigris Expedition
Baker - Heyerdahl - Senkevich - Mauri

















a little more Easter Island...
and a Blowfish made into a light!

Across the street from the Kon-Tiki and the Ra II was the Fram Polar Ship... a ship that was used in expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic regions by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which Fram was supposed to freeze into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.  Fram is said to have sailed farther north (85°57'N) and farther south (78°41'S) than any other wooden ship...(same as previous source)...

Dave actually toured the ship (4 boats was one over my limit for man-toys)...I preferred to sit on a bench and watch the people...

And the weather was nice...
Dave and the intrepid explorers...

at the end of the parking lot, just at the harbor...
I really didn't expect to see an inukshuk, but there it was!

9/26/14

Excursion - Frogner (Vigeland) Park - Part 2

After crossing the Bridge, you approach the Fountain...
Originally designed to stand in Eidsvolls plass in front of the Parliament of Norway, the Fountain (Fontenen) was fabricated from bronze and adorned with 60 individual bronze reliefs. Portraying children and skeletons in the arms of giant trees, the Fountain suggests that from death comes new life



And there was more to see than just statues...the Fountain's plaza was intricate...

and the service workers' gates were just as pleasant to see as the main gates, although not as complicated...

and I found the gardening to be wonderful...



I wasn't thrilled to find all the steps leading up to the Monolith, but was pleased to find there were plateaus, each with it's own garden...






For the record, the bees were huge and very busy...

The final level to the Monolith is gated - one set of gates are males...
 
the other females...
 


The Monolith itself is over 46 feet high and is comprised of 121 individuals rising to the sky...



I liked this sculpture more than the rest...I can't decide if he just looks "so not interested"...or in deep distress...

After you go down the other side of the Monolith plateau, you head toward the sundial with a surrounding zodiac...
 

mine

Dave's
At the far end of the Park is the Wheel of Life, representing the theme of the entire Park...about halfway between the Sundial and the Wheel, we had to turn right before going all the way to the end to get to the bus parking area, but that's what a zoom lens is for...

9/23/14

Excursion - Frogner (Vigeland) Park - Part 1

Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943); in 1921 Vigeland donated all of his works to the City of Oslo and, in return, received a combined studio and home (now the museum) - a sweet deal if you can work it.  He worked on the sculptures from 1924 until his death.

From their website:
The Vigeland Park is the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist, and is one of Norway's most popular tourist attractions. The park is open to visitors all year round.  The unique sculpture park is Gustav Vigeland's lifework with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and wrought iron. Vigeland was also in charge of the design and architectural layout of the park. The Vigeland Park was mainly completed between 1939 and 1949.  Most of the sculptures are placed in five units along an 850 meter long axis (a little more than 1/2 mile): The Main gate, the Bridge with the Children's playground, the Fountain, the Monolith plateau and the Wheel of Life.
 
All of the sculptures in the Vigeland Park were modelled in full size in clay by
[Gustav] ...He then let professional craftsmen do the carving in granite and casting in bronze. 

The sculptures reflect all stages of life...it's very impressive.

Now - I must confess here that I thought I was liberal until I walked into this park.  And I have seen sculptures of naked people all over the world, none of which I found particularly disturbing because of their state of unclothing.  BUT...when you are surrounded by that many naked sculpted people of all ages I found it contained a sense of voyeurism that I, personally, am not comfortable with...I'm not saying the man wasn't talented...he did accomplish a level of intimacy between people that is difficult to achieve, but, again, made me feel more like a voyeur than a patron of the arts.

Robb Watt laughed at me when I said I wasn't taking some pictures because I didn't want to share them with my grandchildren...not even the older ones.  Doesn't mean I don't look at the art, it just means that I don't feel the need to photograph everything (contrary to popular belief).

This, plus knowing he didn't do the carving in the final material himself, forced a self-conversation about what I think Art is / is not.   I wondered if it was acceptable because he was Scandinavian (and therefore in a different culture) or was it radical when he designed them?  Because it was already classed as "Art", did that make society just accept it?  What about some of them did I find objectionable?  I guess, since Art is supposed to cause a reaction of some sort, it at least accomplished that goal. 

The park is vast and if you aren't up for walking from one end of the 80 acres to the other, this may not be the park for you (Art or not)...needless to say, it took a while for me to get from the front gate where the bus was allowed to drop us off to the parking lot on the other side of the monolith where it could pick us up again!  And Dave was extremely patient.

I enjoyed the ironwork -

lights along the gated front of the park -
I'd love to have these in my yard
part of the knotted work on the gate itself
When you enter the park, it has a beautiful garden and wide paths approaching the Bridge with the Children's Playground...and a side garden just for the statue of Vigeland...

And there is more in the Park than just statues...the flowers were still blooming...



 
 
 
 
and, truth to be told, this guy disturbed
me more than any of the statues...
The Bridge is about 328 feet long and sculptures line each side...


At each of the four corners of the Bridge is a column with a person wrestling with some kind of a lizard...here are two of them...I guess they mean what you want them to mean...
 
The most popular statue on the Bridge itself is the Angry Boy (it's even on the front of the guide book) - the crowd around it was pretty big and I couldn't get close, so I looked across from it and found this little Miss, with no crowd, that I found far more attractive in manner...
 
Of all the other statues on the Bridge - some of which I felt would have been extremely dangerous if they had been real children and would necessitate interference by CPS - I found this one the most delightful...
Except for the naked part, it reminded me of when my Dad would pick me up and swing me around and it felt like flying
 
Everyone was, of course, taking pictures of all of the statues, but I became distracted by birds (who, like birds everywhere, have no respect for Art)...
FYI - these are Hooded Crows (the Euro version of our crows...)
Next up - more statues, more flowers...