We are proud to announce that Landscape and Nature in Scandinavian Art, edited by Tonje Haugland Sørensen (Senior Researcher, NorWhite project) and MaryClaire Pappas (affiliated professor), will be published by Routledge in April 2025.
The edited volume presents scholarship reshaping Scandinavian art history's understanding of nature's representation.
The chapters critically examine the interwoven relationship between people and land, challenging the traditional emphasis on landscape as a reflection of national character, which has often obscured more critical perspectives.
By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the volume counters the dominance of teleological national narratives in regional scholarship, instead situating encounters with nature within broader contexts.
The chapters explores themes such as circumpolar exploration, colonial practices, the deconstruction of National Romantic myths, and contemporary artistic responses to the politics of land.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
MaryClaire Pappas and Tonje Haugland Sørensen
Section I: Beyond the Nation
2. Nature without Nationality: Extreme Weather Painter Marcus Larson
Dan Karlholm
3. Frits Thaulow’s Winter Landscapes and the Joy of Friluftsliv
Øystein Sjåstad
4. Beyond the Churchyard Wall: Stave Churches in the Medieval Landscape
Stephen Westich
Section II: Nationalism and the Colonial Imagination
5. The Absence of Imperial Prospects: Colonial Ignorance in the Danish Art Historical Landscape
Mathias Danbolt
6. Polar Nature in Paris: François-Auguste Biard’s Arctic Landscape in the Museum of Geology and Mineralogy.
Katarina Wadstein Macleod
7. Reciprocity and Respect: Land-Based Artistic Practices in Response to Policies Against the Deatnu River
Haylee Glasel
8. Decorative Landscape and the Politics of Personhood in Leander Engstróm’s Lappflicka
MaryClaire Pappas
Section III: Imagining Land as Resource
9. Afforestation and photography in the Anthropocene: Toril Johannessen’s “The Forest Case” (2019)
Synnøve Marie Vik
10. Site / Sight: Northern Nature, Swedish Resources
Anna-Maria Hällgren
11. Looking for Lumber - the legacy of art and resource extraction in Norwegian landscape painting
Tonje Haugland Sørensen
Section IV: Curating the Anthropocene and the Museum
12. Curating the Anthropocene Roundtable
Gry Hedin, Monica Grini, and Inger Margrethe Lund Gudmundsons