Sommeraften i Kviteseid - Summer evening in Kviteseid

Da jeg sto i Nasjonalgalleriet og malte denne kopien av Erik Werenskiold sitt vakre "Sommeraften i Kviteseid", fikk jeg oppleve hvor mye kulturen vi har vokst opp i betyr for vår lesning av bilder.

En hyggelig museumsvakt, som hadde betraktet meg en stund, kom bort og slo av en prat. Han spurte "Hva betyr det bildet?" Jeg svarte at det betyr vel egentlig ingenting, jeg tror kanskje Werenskiold var ute på tur, kom til Kviteseid, så kveldslyset og de gressende hestene, syntes det var vakkert og bestemte seg for å male dette bildet. Han tenkte lenge over dette, og så utbrøt han: "Men hestene, de betyr vel noe?"

As I was standing in the National Gallery in Oslo, painting this copy of Erik Werenskiold's beautiful "Summer Evening in Kviteseid", I got to experience how much the culture we have grown up in means for our understanding of images.

A nice museum guard, who had been watching me for a while, came over and struck up a conversation. He asked "What does that picture mean?" I replied that it probably doesn't mean anything, I think maybe Werenskiold was out travelling, came to Kviteseid, saw the evening light and the grazing horses, thought it was beautiful and decided to paint this picture. The guard thought about this for a long time, and then exclaimed: "But the horses, they mean something, don't they?"