Henrik Ibsen - Oslo, Norway
N 59° 54.841 E 010° 44.100
32V E 597017 N 6643106
This statue of Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen is located outside the Nationaltheatret (English: National Theatre) in downtown Oslo, Norway.
Waymark Code: WMPDPV
Location: Oslo, Norway
Date Posted: 08/14/2015
Views: 18
ABOUT THE STATUE:
The statue was sculpted by artist Stephan Sinding and erected in 1899, the same year the National Theatre was built and had its first performance. The life-size statue of Ibsen has him standing with both hands behind his back and with the left hand cupped in the right hand. Ibsen has his trademark bushy beard and is looking quite sternly out toward whatever he sees in front of him. He is wearing a long coat that ends mid-calf, with a pair of trousers showing beneath it but only from mid-calf down. He stands atop a cylindrical stone plinth that is divided into five segments. The following inscription is on the plinth: "Henrik Ibsen 1828-1906".
ABOUT THE MAN:
"Henrik Johan Ibsen (20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century.
Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic early play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements.
Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as "a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare". He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare. He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill and Miroslav Krleža. Ibsen was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902, 1903 and 1904.
Ibsen wrote his plays in Danish (the common written language of Denmark and Norway) and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Although most of his plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien, the port town where he grew up—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, his dramas were shaped by his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. Ibsen's dramas continue in their influence upon contemporary culture and film with notable film productions including A Doll's House featuring Jane Fonda and A Master Builder featuring Wallace Shawn."
--Wikipedia (
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