Midsummer Night Bonfire

Narrator: 

Nikolai Astrup wrote a letter to his friend when he was 28 years old. In the letter, we can read his reflections on the celebration of St. Hans - an occasion closely associated with summer solstice - in his home municipality of Jølster - a small village in Western Norway. 

Actor: 

Last night there were Midsummer bonfires all around the mountains, and the multitude of silhouetted people shadowed the mountain sides, with white shirt sleeves that looked like bright dots, and the faint sparks from the flames. 

Kesia Halvorsrud:  

It was a great tradition to celebrate Midsummer, in Jølster, and all around Europe. Big parties, big bonfires, music and maybe some food. And it’s very interesting that Astrup paints this motif so many times. And you can see many different aspects of that celebration. 

Narrator: 

This is Kesia Halvorsrud, who has written a doctoral thesis on Nikolai Astrup. She says that Astrup was a driving force in his home village, especially when it came to the culture of unity and the collective. And in that regard, it was the St.hans celebration that engaged the whole village, from old to young 

Kesia Halvorsrud:  

This was an important part of the culture then, that the children and the young people and adults shared, but it was in a way the young people's party. And this is a time when many artists and writers are concerned with the child’s perspective and spent a lot of time and space writing about the it. And Astrup was a very observant and participating artist in his own time, and he internalizes impulses and tendencies that are very typical of the time. The interest in folk life, and his own childhood memories, his own personal intense experiences with natural phenomena. 

Narrator: 

The motif before you is not a single experience, but rather the sum of memories. 

And in Astrup's letter, he continues discussing the St.hans celebration: 

Actor: 

I couldn't paint this primal atmosphere as a midsummer night... especially now that I'm married. It is still strange to experience a reflection of one's first bonfires, and the raw, all-consuming feelings from younger years, which one can still feel from deep within.