Bergen - Norway - page 281

Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum (West Norway Museum of Applied
Art) In the center of Bergen, this unique (for Norway) museum has one of the
largest collections of Chinese applied art outside China. Its main attraction is a
series of huge marble Buddhist temple sculptures created over a range of cen-
turies. The collection also includes applied art from 1500 to the present day,
with special attention paid to the Bergen silversmiths of the 17th and 18th cen-
turies, who were celebrated for their heavy but elaborate baroque designs. Their
collection of tankards, for example, is stunning. Most of them are embossed
with flora motifs and others are inlaid with silver coins.
Permanenten, Nordahl Bruns Gate 9. & 55-33-66-33. Admission 50NOK ($7.10). May 15-Sept 14 daily
11am-5pm; Sept 15-May 14 Tues-Sun noon-4pm.
Ole Bull: Romantic Musician & Patriot
One of the most colorful characters in the history of western Norway
was Ole Bull (1810-70), the founder of Norway's national theater and a
virtuoso violinist. Leading one of the most remarkable lives of the 19th
century, he was not only a celebrated composer but also a fervent
Utopian socialist and an international ambassador of Norwegian culture
on his frequent international concerts. He became friends with Liszt,
Schumann, Longfellow, Ibsen, and Hans Christian Andersen among
other celebrated men of the day. Bull, who was noted both for his per-
sonal sense of theatrics and his ardent sense of Norwegian nationalism,
had a profound influence on Grieg and his music. Bull's best-known
musical composition is Saeterjentens Sondag for violin and piano.
Born in Bergen, Ole Bull was immediately recognized as a child
prodigy. Amazingly he joined the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
when he was only 8 years old. One of the great violin virtuosos of all
time, a sort of Victorian Mantovani, he won fans in such diverse places
as the United States, Cuba, Moscow, and Cairo. He almost single-hand-
edly rekindled an interest in Norwegian folk music both in Norway and
abroad. In time, the people of Norway began to regard him as a
national symbol.
After his first wife, a French woman, died, Ole Bull married Sara
Thorp, of Madison, Wisconsin, and together they built a summer villa
at Lysøen in 1872. That villa can be visited today. The strikingly hand-
some musician let his hyperactive imagination run wild as he created
an architectural fantasy he called “Little Alhambra,” with its Russian
onion dome, pierced-wood Moorish arches, arabesque columns, and
elegant trelliswork. It was in Lysøen that he died in 1880. The last of
the great Norwegian Romanticists to be lain to rest, he was given one
of the most-attended funerals in Norway.
Visitors today wander across his “fairy tale” 70-hectare (175-acre)
property with its romantic paths studded with gazebos and white shell
sand. In the natural native pine forest, Ole Bull added exotic trees and
bushes from all over the world that would grow in Bergen's chilly clime.
You can also visit a statue and fountain dedicated to this virtuoso
performer on Ole Bulls Plass in the heart of Bergen.