Far, far away Soria Moria Palace shimmered like Gold

Far, far away Soria Moria Palace shimmered like Gold is the pendant image to Kittelsen's Soria Moria Palace — a vision of the distant goal from a different vantage point, the luminous palace glimpsed across an expanse that separates the present moment from the longed-for destination. The phrase 'far, far away' is one of the defining formulas of Norwegian fairy-tale language, and Kittelsen's image of the shimmering golden palace has become inseparable from it. This is an image that passed out of the category of illustration into Norwegian cultural mythology.

The composition emphasises distance and light — the palace reduced to a luminous golden shimmer on the horizon while the immediate landscape is rendered in darker, cooler tones. The strong tonal contrast between foreground shadow and distant radiance conveys the fairy-tale quality of the beckoning goal.