Vigeland
In 1906 a sculptor named Gustav Vigeland made a proposal to create a giant fountain for the city of Oslo. The city stalled on giving him the funding but he continued to work on the design, adding more sculptures and a design for a giant granite column formed by a pile of naked figures. The city refused to allow him to go ahead with his park until 1921.
In 1921 the City of Oslo decided to demolish the house where Vigeland lived and build a library. After a long dispute, Vigeland was granted a new building from the city where he could work and live: in exchange, he promised to donate to the city all his subsequent works, including sculptures, drawings, engravings and models.[6]
The park covers 80 acres and contains 212 bronze and granite sculptures- and it looks very cool on google maps.
The sculptures consist mostly of naked people doing stuff. Naked men, women, and children are depicted fighting, dancing, running, or wrestling with each other, animals, and monsters. Often they're depicted fighting animals or being eaten by monsters. The number of sculptures in the park is overwhelming and awesome. This was one of my favorite places in Oslo.
Many of the granite statues captured facial expressions quite well.
A horse kicking a baby.
A horse being attacked by babies.
A man throwing his wife by her face.
A pile of babies.
There are many more statues scattered throughout the city - mostly of the same nude men, women, and children. The carvings of nude children were especially foreign to this American tourist. I think if a US artist tried to donate his sculptures of naked children to a local city, he would be arrested and registered as a sex offender.
The city hall was decorated with more socialist imagery, carvings of national pride and celebration of the working class. They were a bit boring but I liked the confused expression on this fisherman's face.
The vigeland park had a lot of people sunbathing and cooking food on small charcoal grilles. Known as Egangsgrilles, they're just aluminum pans with a cheap grill. You can buy them at most grocery stores along with tiny bags of charcoal. They're very popular in Norway. Ja says he's seen parks filled with people grilling food this way and we saw the characteristic rectangular burns in the grass and the special trash bins designed especially for the grills overflowing with soot covered pans and grills.
