Teodor Kittelsen (1857-1914) was a norwegian artist known for his nature and folklore paintings. He is one of the most known painters from Norway, although it is hard to argue with Munchs popularity.
Kittelsen has a great way of recreating the norwegian landscape, and has inspired me since I was very young. I have walked in his footsteps in Kragerø, and have seen a lot of his work in person.
He has given written folktales an apparence through his work, and all norwegians know what a troll looks like thanks to his paintings.
His paintings have a sublime atmosphere that I can appreciate.
His caricature of a small man on the left has to be my favourite of all his pieces. He just captured my love of frogs in one image. I have seen this in person when I was around 15, so it might have been a great inspiration for how I want to paint frogs.
I love to incorporate the landscape I know from Norway in my work, and that might be because I have seen so many great renditions by Kittelsen. It is always sad to me that he died in poverty, even though he was considered a great artists at his time as well. Norway was not the richest country then, but he stayed here and kept painting this country even when it failed him.
I am sure you can see how the norwegian landscape influences my pen as it moves across the canvas... or in this case, screen. This piece is from Philbert 3, and before I completely established how Philbert would end up looking. I would definetily draw elements from this differently now. However, even though my style and Kittelsens style has no direct similarities, the love for our countrys landscape is always visible.
Teodor Kittelsens Nøkken is a piece I felt inspired by in my recent work on Philbert 21.
I wanted to recreate a creature I had seen many times in Kittelsens famous work. I talk more about this in the post of the image as well, but the inspiration from Kittelsen is very visible. I did leave out the lilypads, mostly because I felt my work on Philbert 9 did that well enough. I will say, I have been at the pond where he got inspired for the work, and it is definitely full of lilypads.