Winter in Nittedal

This 1905 canvas of Nittedal in winter represents Munthe's return to landscape painting after years dominated by his decorative and applied arts work in the Art Nouveau style. Nittedal, a valley north of Oslo, was familiar territory for Norwegian painters: its landscapes had been depicted by multiple artists associated with the national naturalist tradition. A winter painting from 1905 may reflect Munthe's re-engagement with direct landscape observation after the primarily studio-based work of his decorative period, or it may show the influence of the new Post-Impressionist and Symbolist approaches to landscape that had transformed European painting by this date. The National Museum's holding of this work as part of its Munthe collection places it in the context of his full career, where the transition between naturalism and decorativism and back again can be traced through the holdings.

Norwegian winter landscape at this date — whether approached through naturalist or symbolist optics — involved the characteristic palette of white snow, blue shadow, dark tree trunks, and the grey or pale blue of the winter sky. Munthe may bring more expressive colour and simplified form to this subject than in his 1870s landscape work, reflecting the decade and a half of decorative practice that had refined his sense of colour and pattern.