Historical Outline

The Faroese art of painting is undergoing rapid growth. Despite the size of the country (50,000 inhabitants) and the fact that Faroese art history is comparatively young, the quality of Faroese art seems remarkably high. This was demonstrated when a large exhibition of Faroese art at the Copenhagen art gallery "Den Frie" opened in 1999 where it was met with great enthusiasm by the Danish art critics. They passionately exclaimed that Faroese art reflected authenticity, honesty and an exceptional kind of strength and vitality. In his review, the Danish critic Ole Nørlyng reflects on the foundation of Faroese art, what makes the Faroese painter create? He concludes that nature, the wild landscape, is the driving force behind the Faroese artist. Thus nature, once again, plays a dominant role in Faroese art. It did begin with nature. Pioneers of Faroese painting were Niels Kruuse (1871-1951), Christen Holm Isaksen (1877-1935) and Jógvan Waagstein (1879-1949); these were all self-taught painters. They painted landscapes inspired by the national-romantic movement of their day and the all-pervading Faroese nature.

The first Faroese professional painter, Sámal Joensen-Mikines (1906-1979), was the first who seriously ventured to choose painting as an occupation; he has influenced Faroese painting considerably. He began his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1928 with Aksel Jørgensen and Ejner Nielsen as his teachers. Especially the latter, together with the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, served as the greatest sources of inspiration for Mikines' symbolic, expressive, and often sombre and dramatic portrayals in which death plays a major role. The darkest paintings are dated around 1934, which became a fateful year for Mikines. His native village, Mikines, was struck by grief when a large part of the male population of the village drowned because of a boat wreck. Furthermore this was the year when Mikines' father died. The artist has described it as an artistic experience when his father's coffin was carried through the village. But later paintings of, for example, his native village are light and idyllic. The drama, however, remained an important part of the artistic expression of Mikines.

Following this forceful beginning of Mikines, Faroese art experienced a virtual blossoming after World War II, when several talented and productive artists returned to the Faroe Islands after finished studies in Denmark. Among these was the sculptor Janus Kamban (b.1913) - a fiery soul in Faroese art circles by reason of his own art as well as an organiser of exhibitions of Faroese art. The painter Ruth Smith (1913-1958) belongs to the same generation. From her life work, undoubtedly the portraits, and especially the self-portraits from the 1950s, are the strongest. These are colourful masterpieces characterised by a deep insight into the complementary relationship of the colours together with a clear sense of colourway. But it is not solely the formal quality, which makes an impression. The short restless stroke of the brush makes the picture surface quiver with life. She wants to paint the truth, but the prosaic descriptions are not without dramatic-expressive qualities. Confronted with these paintings you are reminded of Edvard Munch's credo that the artist must dissect the soul on the canvas. Ruth Smith has portrayed her own person with examining, critical, almost merciless eyes. She has gone through great pains portraying the eyes and it is not entirely by chance that the eyes are called the mirror of the soul because looking into these eyes it feels like you are looking directly into the soul of the artist.

With its firm grip on reality, nature and everyday life, Faroese art may seem quite old-fashioned. In other countries, artists have, for many years, been interested in surrealism, installation art, minimalism and other "isms" but so far these have not affected Faroese art much.
There has been talk of Faroese expressionism, but this is expressionism based on reality and not on art theory. This expressionism springs from the, at times, hard living conditions together with the overwhelming and dramatic nature.
Cubism in Faroese art has been mentioned a few times, but Faroese cubism is quite different from the originally intended analytical cubism of Picasso and Braque; in Faroese cubism the tangible reality is never far away. All the same, cubism has had some impact on the picture composition of many Faroese pieces of art. This is mainly because of Jack Kampmann who settled on the Faroe Islands after World War II. He was a painter as well as an accomplished art presenter, which was to benefit the Faroese artists greatly. Some of his paintings can be seen in the Art Museum in Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, in several of these paintings a clear interest for Cézanne and the cubists is visible.
Ingálvur av Reyni (b.1920) has learned a great deal from Jack Kampmann. This, by now, famous artist has for many years had an enormous impact on Faroese art. He is in capital form and still paints pictures, which form the cornerstones of modern art on the islands. Since the 1960s he has painted some wholly abstract pictures, but he often uses the Faroese landscape as basis. He is not content with registering the landscape, he fights it, simplifies it, abstracts from it, until only the essence is left; until the spiritual experience of the motive has become an independent work of art.
Zacharias Heinesen (b.1936) is one of whose works can be ordered on this homepage. His famous compositions of triangular and quadrangular mountains and houses in strong, clear colours have almost found a school in Faroese art. The feeling of his pictures of great mountains and tiny houses seems quite light and even though the shapes are not directly geometrical the composition of the picture surface is comparatively simple.
In Amariel Nordoy's (b.1945) pictures the motives, whether they depict the sea, boats or mountains, seem to be blown into a thousand pieces; rather like coming out of a dark room into the sunlight. Apart from the few mentioned here, Fareoese art is enriched with many talented artists, many of which are represented on this homepage.

The Faroese art of painting has hardly ever been as manifold as now. Beyond the many established artists, the outline of a new generation is about to takes shape. This generation does not form a united opposition against the established art; the young are quite diverse in their artistic expression. There is, for example, great difference between Øssur Johannesen's (b.1970) expressive pictures of human suffering and agonies of the soul and Rannvá Kunoy's esthetic x-ray pictures of the human inside.
But as a whole, the young generation's interest in the Faroese landscape as subject seems to decline while the interest in the human mind, existential questions and the internal landscape seems to rise.