Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Fridtjov on the fjord: sculptural excess, discordant discourse, and the power of the gift

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/136124

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Arts and Culture (research) (MA)

Oomkes, Robin (2020)

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Fridtjov on the fjord: sculptural excess, discordant discourse, and the power of the gift

Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)

The colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of its melodramatic stance, and from the perspective of anthropology because of its transgression of gifting norms. The statue also raises the question of the power of the German discourse of the North, which, I claim, had similarities with the Foucaultian discourse described by Said in Orientalism. In this thesis all these forms of excess are explored and an answer is attempted at the question why the Kaiser created the statue.