Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the Swedish painter Anna Boberg’s early 20th c. multicolour depictions of the Arctic. Along with other artists, she challenged the dominant narratives of Arctic nature as unspoilt perpetual winter, which still dominates current depictions of the climate crisis.

Paper long abstract:

With floating icebergs in the unpopulated distance, both historical visualisations of the Arctic and current depictions of the climate crisis constantly fall prey to an illusion of neutral illustrations. This illusion persists stubbornly persisting despite the inconvenient truth that any visual depiction is always a construction and never neutral.

This paper deals with how the Swedish painter Anna Boberg (1864-1935) painted an altogether different picture of the Arctic. Along with other artists, she challenged the dominant 19th and 20th century narrative of depicting an Arctic nature of unspoilt perpetual winter.

Across a period of thirty years, 1901-1934, Boberg spent time each year in the lower Norwegian arctic Lofoten archipelago, depicting its nature, people and fishing industries. Through her hundreds of paintings, it is possible to follow how nature changed with the seasons; from the stormy sea in winter to the colourful green landscapes of summer. Her paintings of the arctic chronicle her time spent in the region throughout the year: fishing, hiking, swimming. It also follows her aesthetic development from turn of the century impressionism when the view from her window was painted in blue and pink, to 1920s modernism with thickly layered paint in brown and dark hues.

Anna Boberg’s work was regularly exhibited in the early twentieth century in European capitals such as Paris and Stockholm, portraying a heterogenic understanding of Arctic nature far removed from the single story of a white and dangerous landscape.