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On our first weekend in Oslo, we spent Saturday touring the national museums, of which there are four.  The National Gallery houses older, more classic works; it was our first stop.  It isn't very large compared to other museums like the MoMA or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but its size was perfect to Ben and I.  After a while of staring at artwork, they all start to look the same, whether you appreciate it or not.  Ben and I have very different tastes in visual (fine) art--he prefers impressionist, "pretty" paintings like those by Bonnard, Matisse, and Cezanne.  He enjoys the use of bright, happy colors.  To be sure, I'm not looking for ugly paintings, but I don't really share his tastes.  I enjoy paintings that are more defined and which use more dramatic color and sharper contrasts.  In the past, I have usually expressed disinterest in paintings that depicted realistic landscapes, but I changed my tune when I was introduced to Thomas Fearnley and Johan Christian Dahl.  Some of the landscapes that we saw where amazing!

We spent much of the morning enjoying the gallery.  It was a very nice collection of paintings, including Skrik,  or the Scream, by Edvard Munch, one of Norway's most celebrated artists.

For lunch, we went to the local McDonald's.  It isn't the most sophisticated choice, but ever since we tried a delicious burger at a McDonald's in Medellin, Colombia we decided to compare quality and presentation of across different countries.  In the afternoon, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art.  I consider myself an appreciator of art, but this museum forced me to draw the line.  Some of the exhibits were so minimalist that they were laughable; others were downright vile.  We came across a panel of mixed-media works, probably 100 in all, that may very well have been painted with blood.  On the first floor I was all about being open to something new, but we pretty much sped through the second floor.  To be sure, there were a few really cool pieces that we found, which made the visit worthwhile.

We also briefly visited the Museums of Architecture and Decorative Arts and Design.  We walked down to the water and enjoyed a beer out in the sunshine, where we discussed our feelings about the museums that we had visited.  The question that we mulled over is what is art?  After some discussion, I think we decided that anything can be art, but that it leads to a different, more complicated question regarding the functionality, intent, and ethics of its creation/display.  In short, the jury's out.  It was a wonderful Saturday.