Landscaping the Gaze in Norwegian Visual Art and Grieg's Op. 66 Folksong Piano Arrangements

Representations of the Norwegian landscape in nineteenth-century visual culture (including paintings, photography, and optical illusion devices) were not only part of an emerging lexicon of nationalist iconography, they also subverted the boundaries of realism. They enfolded the perceiver in a sensory journey through the abstract fabric of space and time. Depictions of the rural, pre-modern landscape often confronted the subjectivity of the gaze by deflecting an apparent reality and obliquely revealing an absence. Using a hermeneutic lens, this article examines the performativity of landscape in Grieg's 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66. These piano miniatures exemplify a curious dreamlike musical discourse, presenting the landscape as an object of desire hidden from the immediate field of vision, and as a distant sound world amenable to imaginative contemplation. By tracing connections between Grieg's music and its contemporary context, this article places Op. 66 within a performative visual culture.