No 3-1957 Le Mur

Anna-Eva Bergman
It's the light in Norwegian landscapes that gives me inspiration for everything.  

Narrator
Some roots go deep. Anna-Eva Bergman spent much of her life in France, but she never let go of the Norwegian landscape. Two voyages she made along the coast on a Hurtigruten coastal mailship made a deep impression on her. It was as though Norway was in her backbone, as she told broadcaster NRK in 1979: 

Anna-Eva Bergman
It's perhaps not exactly a particular mountain or a particular lake, where it's flat and where there's wind and where there's an unreal light. And all the islands that lie in the sea. And that's what I'm trying to depict. I don't know whether it's successful, but at any rate I try to do my best. It's… it's difficult to explain it all at once. I'm better at painting than talking.

Narrator
Anna-Eva Bergman was an internationally recognized artist. She often used gold leaf in her paintings. This gives a gleaming effect that may remind us of old religious paintings. This allowed the unreal light she searched for in nature to emerge in her paintings.  

Anna-Eva Bergman
I use silver and gold and other metals. I use a little platinum. I use a little of each, and then I scrape it and so I try different ways of expressing myself.

Narrator
With mountains, fjords and snow-covered plateaux as her inspiration, Anna-Eva Bergman created her own, abstract interpretations of Norwegian landscapes. 

Anna-Eva Bergman
But this isn't Norway, and nor is it a copy of Norway. Because it's much more a fantasy about Norway that I've discovered for myself. I don't decide that I'm going to paint Norway, but the pictures turn out Norwegian, whether I want them to or not.